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How not to do Stand ups?

So what is a stand up in a Scrum?

A stand up is basically a Scrum event, where the whole Scrum team gets together each morning to answer three questions:
1. What I did yesterday?
2. What I am working on today?
3. Are there any impediments?

That's it!

Team will usually stand up in a circle, if possible near the Kanban board.

So what are the things that can go wrong here?


  • Most of the teams replace project meetings with stand up and these often become lengthy discussion meetings. The team start discussing issues, design solutions, weather, coffee from the machine, pets etc.....
  • The team looks and reports to the Scrum Master or team lead.
  • Often the team see this a status reporting meeting.
  • The time and place of  the stand up keeps changing.
  • If the Scrum Master is not available, the team is lost on who will conduct the stand up and whom to report to.

So what can we do to address this?

  • The Scrum Master should coach the team to stick to above three questions.
  • The Scrum Master should coach the team to time keeping.
  • Any lengthy discussions should be encouraged outside the stand up.
  • The team should stand in a circle (not sit down) and address other team members while giving their updates.
  • The Scrum Master should take a step back from the team and let the team pick up the next member to give update. The Scrum Master should never pick the individual to give update. This make the team self organising and they can conducts stand up even when the Scrum Master is not available. There are various technique to address this.
  • The Scrum Master should make sure that the stand up is happening at same place and same time. This brings some consistency and discipline within the team and sets the right expectation.

Some techniques to adopt in a stand up

Different team adopt different techniques but here are some which we have used in our team and it has worked. The idea is to adopt something which will work for you. Please post in the comments if you adopt any different techniques.
  • The last person to turn up at the stand up starts and randomly picks up the next.
  • You can use a soft toy or a ball. Anyone randomly picks up the ball and throws randomly at another person to update next.
  • Person with birthday near to the current date starts.
  • Anyone randomly starts and then you go clockwise on even dates and anti clockwise on odd dates.
The idea of above techniques is to bring some dynamic and randomness in the team.

Hope this helps. 

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