Do try this at work #8: Team Stand-ups
Team stand-ups are a common practice in progressive teams the world over. Why? Because they’re an awesome use of time, a snappy source of team building, and an easy way to get clarity on how our workloads and roles are going. The purpose of these quick (10-15 mins) regular (daily/weekly) meetings is to gather, share what’s in progress across the team, flag any blockers, see who needs a little help, and identify who has capacity to help.
I have developed a simple, editable template that you can use with your team to give them a go. Each team member is asked to respond to the following prompts:
👉 What tasks do you plan to complete/progress?
“Since the last Stand-up, I have…”
“Before the next Stand-up, I will…”
👉 Any help needed/blockers?
What’s slowing you down/blocking you?
“If I had to get help on one thing, it would be…”
“I could get things done faster if…”
👉 How is your workload out of 10?
1 - I have capacity to help others
10 - I’m drowning!
☝️ You and your team can fill this in before the meeting or add five minutes to the beginning to do this together in silence.
A wee story about stand-ups & whisky 🥃
A software engineer, a whisky taster and a rocket scientist walked into a distillery… No joke, I was there too! It was just last week on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. My partner (the rocket scientist) is Scottish so partial to a good whisky; the software engineer is from Brooklyn, Connecticut and also owns a liquor store specialising in high-end whisky (they were over to buy a whole cask!); and the whisky taster was the wonderful Billy, our guide for the tasting session.
After a few drams (whiskies) conversation was free-flowing and Billy was curious to learn what we all did for a living. To my surprise, he was most interested in my line of work! Back on the mainland, Billy had led a fire station in Glasgow for thirty years and shared his take on what he feels is most helpful for making a team tick: communication and transparency. He told us that at his fire station, long before Agile was a thing, he had been holding stand-ups with his firefighters every morning. He viewed them as essential for ensuring the communication and transparency that teams need to function at their best. And so he continued them at the whisky distillery with ‘the ten-to-ten’ meeting, so-called because they start every day at 09.50!
I love hearing about teams who have never heard of agile or self-organisation and are unwittingly rocking the patterns we find in progressive organisations 😍
Increasingly, I’m convinced that concepts like agile, teal, lean, self-management etc are ‘window dressing’ and probably not the thing we should be chasing...
Instead, by focusing on continuously improving the way that we show up and communicate together (our ‘way of being’), alongside making participatory decisions, holding healthy meetings, and developing a culture of feedback (our ‘ways of working’), I reckon we can create some pretty awesome working environments. And by all means, borrow from agile and self-management etc along the way! Just don’t worry too much about becoming one concept or another.
…Much better to focus you energy on the patterns found in progressive org’s - healthy comm’s & meetings, learning to make participatory decisions, and a growing a culture of feedback are great places to start!
So grab yourself a w̶h̶i̶s̶k̶y̶ coffee and begin/continue your journey by lighting some communication and transparency fires in your team. Schedule a few regular stand-ups, give them a go and then reflect on whether or not they were helpful. If they were, make them a permanent thing - here’s that template again.
Do try this at work! 🚀🔥
New Ways of Working: online course
If you would like to join a cohort to learn about and experiment in your team with more practices like this then join my online course 🤗 It starts on July 20 and there are still a few places left. Head here for all the details: https://www.marco.work/course And just hit reply to ask any questions or to book your place.
