How to conduct a daily stand-up meeting productively

Let's get straight to the facts; most of us simply hate meetings. Meetings not only waste a lot of time but also rarely result in anything productive.

But when done right, these meetings can be effective for any team that wants to share updates quickly and ensure everyone is on the same page. Daily stand-up meetings that are short and to the point can help teams in any discipline stay focused, get past obstacles, and achieve their goals productively.

What is a stand-up meeting?

The purpose of stand-up meetings is for team members to report on the progress of their respective tasks on a regular basis — usually once a day. Most individuals pop in for a quick discussion and then get back to work, so these meetings are usually short and crisp.

Stand-up meetings, also referred to as daily scrum meetings, have long been a staple of agile software development methodologies such as Scrum and Kanban, but they are now being adopted by a variety of teams across industries, including marketing, project management, and product development.

No matter what you call them—a scrum, a huddle, a daytime roll call, or things alike, stand-up meetings have become fairly crucial for bringing teams together to prioritize work goals.

For better understanding, let’s start with what a stand-up meeting isn't. They are not held for people to list every single thing they have scheduled for the day. Instead, a stand-up meeting is organized to discuss the most pressing issues of the day. The meetings ought to be short, to the point, and focused.

Whether you're meeting in a conference room or your team is geographically distributed across multiple time zones, here are some tips for leading productive stand-up meetings.

Tips for productive stand-up meetings

Maintain consistency

Setting a specific time is necessary since it is simple to incorporate into everyone's schedule. Moreover, meetings should happen at a time that works for everyone, considering the different time zones involved. If your stand-ups are only held on some days of the week, you must stick to that schedule. If you choose Monday, don't change it, be consistent!

Keep it concise

As previously stated, stand-up meetings are meant to be short; they should last no more than 15 minutes. You might end up using the entire 15 minutes if you have a large team. If it takes longer than 15 minutes to review everyone's daily status report, your team is probably too large. To get through tasks quickly, traditional Scrum guidelines recommend focusing mainly on three key questions:

• What did you achieve yesterday?
• What are you accomplishing today?
• Which roadblocks did you face?

Table blockers for later

Team members often use the stand-up meeting as an opportunity to try to solve problems. Instead, have these discussions after the meeting. Please take note of the problem, and allow the next person to share their update. Individuals willing to solve a problem can get together to try and sift through it once the stand-up meeting has finished.

Address the team's mood

Stand-up meetings frequently fail to address the mental and emotional environment at work. This goes without saying that your team's mood directly affects their performance and productivity. Therefore, your daily stand-up meetings should include keeping a pulse on the team's mood.

Go for asynchronous stand-up meetings

If your stand-up does not always happen at the same time every day, you can still keep a tab on everyone's tasks by asking them to answer a set of predefined questions in a timely manner. You won't get a timely status report as you would in daily stand-ups, but the whole team, no matter where they are, will be able to participate.

There are many ways to automate your daily stand-up meetings, thanks to the various applications, digital tools, and bots that help save time and effort by automating your daily stand-ups. Stand-up tools like Undiffer have made it easy for everyone to follow how daily tasks progress and have shown to be truly effective for remote and distributed teams.

Time to stand up and get going

Daily stand-up meetings are an incredibly simple means to keep your workflows and workload on track. While running short, agile meetings have various advantages; you should also be aware of the potential pitfalls.

Whether the teammates in your stand-up meetings are in the office or work remotely, ensure that you have the right tool that allows them to connect and share updates asynchronously.

Manage daily stand-ups productively with Undiffer

Time is one of the most poorly utilized assets of any business. Every single minute spent in unproductive meetings and pointless tasks is a minute lost trying to convert leads into customers. Make sure you have access to the right digital tool that lets you keep track of your team's work effectively. Get rid of long-drawn meetings and make the most of your daily scrum meetings asynchronously with a stand-up tool like Undiffer.