The Standup
The Daily Stand-Up Meeting
The daily stand-up meeting - also known as a “daily scrum” or “daily huddle” - is one of the simplest yet most impactful rituals a team can adopt. In its essence, the stand-up involves the whole team gathering daily for a quick status update (although it's much more than that as we will see), typically done while standing to keep the meeting short. This is obviously something that happens less with remote working and video call practices.
This meeting is a cornerstone of Agile software development, but its utility extends beyond tech teams. A well-run stand-up can significantly enhance team performance and cohesion. However, the effectiveness of this ritual depends on subtle details, and when those details are overlooked, the stand-up risks becoming a waste of time.
For seasoned practitioners, recognising and addressing issues during stand-ups is often second nature. However, for those new to the practice, problems can lead to frustration and, ultimately, abandonment of this valuable tool. Understanding the purpose of the stand-up is key to ensuring its success.
Why is it Called a Stand-Up?
The name "stand-up" stems from the practice of standing during the meeting, which encourages focus and brevity. Standing deters long-winded storytelling and ensures energy levels remain high. Physical discomfort also signals when a meeting is overstaying its welcome.
Some people are talkative and tend to wander off into Story Telling. Some people want to engage in Problem Solving immediately after hearing a problem. Meetings that take too long tend to have low-energy and participants not directly related to a long discussion will tend to be distracted.
However, standing alone doesn’t guarantee efficiency. Meetings should be concise - ideally under fifteen minutes - to maintain focus and engagement. Clearly signalling the end ensures a strong conclusion and prevents energy from waning.
The Goals of a Daily Stand-Up
To determine whether a stand-up is effective, it helps to understand the benefits it’s designed to bring. At its core, the daily stand-up is a recurring solution to a common set of challenges that arise when people work together as a team. Specifically, it helps teams:
1. Share Understanding of Goals
Even when teams align (or think they are aligned) at the start of a sprint or a specific phase of a project, individual understandings of goals can drift over time. Regular stand-ups ensure that everyone is operating with the same priorities and adapting to evolving contexts. A team where members pursue conflicting goals is unlikely to achieve success.
2. Coordinate Efforts
The very essence of a team implies a need for coordination to accomplish a shared goal together. If this isn't required it's not a team, just a group of individuals. When work requires collaboration, poor coordination can lead to inefficiencies, missed deadlines, and subpar results. Stand-ups provide a structured way to ensure team efforts are synchronised.
3. Share Problems and Improvements
One of the greatest advantages of working in a team is the ability to collectively solve problems and share ideas. Stand-ups encourage team members to voice challenges and improvements, fostering a culture of mutual support and innovation. Teams that don’t regularly share and address obstacles risk becoming stagnant. But it's even more than this. Some people, even in a supportive team environment, struggle to ask for help. The transparency of daily progress between peers should help teammates spot when one of their colleagues might be struggling in silence.
4. Identify as a Team
If a group of people don't regularly participate in a group activity, an exercise that obviously helps the group become a team with the benefits outlined above, it's unlikely that you'll psychological identify with the group as your team. Regular face to face engagement is essential for building trust and a sense of belonging. Therefore regular engagement in a shared activity like the stand-up strengthens team bonds and promotes a collective identity, which is crucial for long-term success. Whilst not the original goal of the standup, we believe that, arguably, this is the largest single benefit of a well run standup. When the context is right, the visibility and sharing of the right information is high they increase visibility and accountability between peers, improving team performance. In addition they improve team morale through a sense of both purpose and achievement.
It's not easy to maximise each of these benefits and they are seldom realised when a team sleepwalks through their daily standup.
Structuring Stand-Up Discussions
Effective stand-ups benefit from clear and consistent discussion structures. Several approaches have emerged to guide who speaks and in what order, each offering distinct benefits and challenges. Note that what is common across them all is the desire to make the activity as self organising as possible and with little to no need for a facilitator or manager to run them:
Last Arrival Speaks First
This simple rule helps attendees know who should start without relying on a facilitator. It subtly encourages punctuality, as late arrivals must speak first. However, this approach can backfire if the last arrival is unprepared, leading to a shaky start.
Round Robin
In this method, participants speak in a predetermined order, such as clockwise or counter-clockwise. This eliminates the need for facilitation and encourages equal participation. While predictable, this structure can lead to disengagement, as attendees might tune out until their turn. However, it remains a popular choice.
Pass the Token
Adding an element of unpredictability, this approach uses a physical token (like a ball or plush toy) that participants toss to decide who speaks next. This can make the stand-up more engaging and lighthearted, fostering team spirit. However, it may not suit larger teams or professional environments where such practices might seem unorthodox.
A variation of this format that our founder developed many years ago is "Pass the Pen". The pen is used by the individual, not only as the speaking token, but to mark a tally on the physical ticket/card on the agile board to identify that is has been Work In Progress for another day. It's a great way to 1) bring everyone's attention to what ticket is being discussed, and 2) to raise team awareness of time spent in progress versus the effort estimate. In a healthy, supportive team environment that can trigger powerful discussions.
Take a Card
Each participant draws a card upon arrival, determining their speaking order. This method combines fairness with a touch of randomness, ensuring everyone’s turn is clear without requiring additional facilitation. It works particularly well in teams that value structure but want to avoid monotony.
Walk the Board
This approach shifts the focus from individuals to work items and value flow. Instead of going person by person, the team discusses each task displayed on their board, starting with the most urgent or blocked items, or the one closest to being finished. Scott Potter, our founder first coined this phrase when working at Xerox in 2003*. This method increases flow by focussing on priorities, highlighting blockers and stagnant tasks, and promoting action-oriented discussions.
It’s ideal for teams using tools like Kanban or Scrum boards but requires such systems to be in place. Assuming the board uses a left to right flow and a top to bottom prioritisation of the work items, the simplest way to walk the board is to start at the top right of the board. Then, working down the column before moving to the top of the column to the left of this one.
The Anatomy of a Well-Run Stand-Up
A good stand-up meeting achieves its goals through clarity and focus. Here’s an example of how this approach might unfold for a team using the "Walk the Board" (see above) structure to guide discussions. Consider what this might look like with a distributed team as extra effort often needs to be taken to foster the magic of a well run face to face standup:
The team gathers around their task board. A team member begins by discussing the card on the furthest right of the board—the item closest to completion. They share that there’s an issue with the deployment script. Another team member offers to assist. Because this is the highest priority item and it is the closest to delivering value to the business, it makes sense for others to pause their work to help complete this.
The discussion proceeds from right-to-left and top-to-bottom, with each ticket or card’s status and any obstacles being addressed. Team members naturally chime in to offer help or clarify points.
The person observing the flow and gently facilitating (such as a scrum master), records raised obstacles on a separate board or even with a note on a post-it that is then stuck to the ticket.
When a discussion begins to digress, someone raises a hand to suggest taking it offline. This gentle nudge helps maintain the meeting’s momentum.
Once all cards/tickets are reviewed, the facilitator opens the floor for additional comments. A team member shares an idea for a new feature that might render parts of the current plan obsolete. The product manager, attending the stand-up, notes this and agrees to discuss it further afterward.
As the stand-up concludes, team members break off into smaller discussions to address specific issues or brainstorm ideas raised during the meeting. In the early 2000s, these post-standup discussions were often called “huddles,” and seeing a huddle happen after the standup was seen as a positive outcome indicating an effective stand-up.
Final Thoughts
The daily stand-up is more than just a status update; when done well it’s a vital mechanism for aligning, coordinating, and strengthening your team. When executed with purpose and discipline, it becomes a cornerstone of collaboration and continuous improvement. By understanding its goals and employing thoughtful structures like "Walk the Board," teams can ensure their stand-ups remain a source of value and not just another meeting on the calendar.
With this foundation, you're ready to refine your own stand-up practices and help your team unlock their full potential.
Related pages:
Top tips to help your daily-scrum or stand-up rock (opens a new tab, an article on our main website). RECOMMENDED READ
Walking the Board, Walking the Wall was a technique first observed at Xerox in 2003 where Scott Potter was focussing on both value creation and value flow. Scott alternated the format of the daily-standup each day using the then, common round-robin and three questions format on the alternate days.