Daily Stand-Up Meetings: Just for techies? I’ve been leading software development teams for over 20 years, and daily stand-up meetings have been a core part of my routine for at least 15 of those years. You know the drill: - What did you do yesterday? - What are you doing today? - What’s blocking you? For me, stand-ups are so ingrained in the way my teams operate that I can’t imagine working without them. They help us stay aligned, identify roadblocks early and build team spirit. But here’s the thing: in companies I’ve worked with, I’ve noticed that teams outside of software development—rarely adopt stand-ups. Why is that? Have they tried and found they don’t work? Do they see them as unnecessary? Or do they simply not know how impactful these quick check-ins can be? I’m curious — Non-techies what’s your experience? If you do stand-ups: How have they helped your team? If you don’t: Have you tried them and decided against them? Why?
Danny Tipple
2w
For me in recruitment, they’ve always been a must. I loved doing them when running a team. And you nailed it, team spirit, learning, alignment and to get blockers out the way.
Mark Gale
2w
An interesting question. I am guessing that stand-ups are best utilised when delivering change - and change/projects is where most IT effort is based (Service Ops being the obvious exception). Perhaps stand-ups are less useful in BAU situations - perhaps there is less change/projects in the wider business and therefore less need for standups outside of IT. Just my theory - happy to hear counter views.
Adam Londero
2w
One challenge I see is many teams do stand-ups out of dogmatism. The three standard questions for example were dropped by the Scrum Guide in 2020. I believe it is important for teams to connect daily and to have avenues to raise and swarm on blockers but we should always be "uncovering better ways of building software" and challenging mechanisms that add little value.
9.15 am everyday
When saying "you know the drill", I think that's where a line can be drawn: the more the drill is well-known, the better for all people taking part to the stand-up. IMHO, whether techies or non techies won't matter as much as knowing the context. I'm with you that this kind of context is perhaps more popular with techies as for those teams organisation of complex work is a must-have, in order to deliver value and avoid chaos. Those dealing with simpler stuff or with less teamwork coordination involved may find it easier to just "get it done" rather than "talk about it" ... but that's just a different context. Another thing experimented was evening stand up - loved them for teams across multiple timezones - not a fan of contexts where non-tech people might perceive the stand-up just as a a check point: it just takes time away, meeting after meeting, to explain every time in non-technical terms where we are, when techies have instantly "done the drill" ... Yesterday --> done that Today --> will continue with this as planned no blockers so far Context is everything
I think my new preference for meeting is “show me the numbers”
IT infrastructure, cloud & security transformation | Smart property
1wBack when I ran an IT ops team and later an infra ops team I had an informal stand up where I’d wander round (so just me standing up) and just asked people “what are you going to break today” or similar tongue in cheek questions which would turn into an open conversation with all. Sometimes it would reveal that someone was struggling with some work or a prickly customer or that they were having a hard time with something outside of work. These conversations could result in work being re-prioritised, or people jumping in to help another or a follow up conversation with me in private or just a laugh. And if I noticed someone not participating as much as they usually might, that was a flag to quietly check in with that person later to ask if they’re ok. It was always a great way to kick off the day.