Get Up Stand, Stand Up, Move Forward

Get Up Stand, Stand Up, Move Forward

by Dirk Depré - September 8, 2021

When I started my career at a job agency as a recruiter, we aligned our work every morning. That morning meeting had no fancy name like daily scrum of daily stand up, it was ‘the morning meeting’ and the goal of the meeting was simple: set goals for the day, share necessary information and set yourself up for success to achieve the goals. And it worked for the simple reason that we only shared what mattered. Everybody knew what to do. This daily morning meeting is one of the reasons why everyone knew exactly what was expected on a daily basis to be successful. We were the perfect rock band with the greatest sound ever. And for the simple reason that we knew how to communicate in a way that worked for us.

In scrum, the daily scrum is introduced as a key event. It’s key because it totally supports the empirical process: provide transparency, inspect where things might disrupt the flow and finally adapt to the circumstances. All with one goal in mind: living up to the commitments. However, often these kind of meetings have the tendency to turn into some sort of status updates, exactly that kind of meeting it was intended not to become. It’s about sharing relevant information to plan a successful day of work based on possible new insights from yesterday’s work. It is not a status meeting.

The mechanics

So, we want to control the empirical process. (1) The team is inspecting and adapting: discuss, plan and move forward. The inspection is towards the sprint goal and towards the trend of progress towards completion of work. (2) Since the team discusses the insights and since the team are also the experts to deliver the work, the come up with an actionable plan. The team plans work for the next 24 hours and tackles possible roadblocks throughout the day. (3) Sometimes the roadblock is too big, and that’s when a scrum master works his magic. (4) The alignment happens in 15 minutes, because only relevant items that need discussion are being discussed.

A 15 minute alignement like that offers clearly a couple of benefits. First of all, it improves the communication in the team and helps people to better understand each other. Impediments or roadblocks are easily identified and action can be taken immediately. With the time-box of 15 minutes, it also hurries up decision taking and very often it will eliminate the need for other ad hoc meetings throughout the day. We all know that ad hoc meetings have a huge impact because of the context switching.

It’s all about flow, not status

Although suggestive of nature in the past, the format is completely free. It’s the DEV team that decides the structure of the meeting and how it is conducted. The only rule is that it has to check the progress towards the goal(s). A very strong practice is to run the board and start at the end. Naturally you will start to pull work towards the end of the process which often means ‘done’. Since this is a true team huddle, the purpose of the event should be clear to everybody and even more important should be agreed upon.

Share the relevant things. The end goal is to get things done by the end of the sprint. And so we need to learn to not share already available information or provide extensive updates. “Be aware of the powerful one”, I once read in a post. The powerful one is typically the one stepping in the role of the instructive manager, deciding for the team what they need to work on, in need of information and so “feeding the Zombie brains of the team members”. If you recognise the powerful one, don’t let him/her screw up your brain but take immediate actions. Never forget that the team owns the daily scrum.

Stay curious
When scrum is your way of working, you’re working in a fast-paced cadence. Every sprint, you aim to deliver business value. And in those teams who are able to deliver time and time again, it often comes down to CLARITY. They know each other’s strengths and flaws, they communicate often and sure have learned to address what needs to be said to one another. They stay curious time and time again because they know that once they are in flow, nothing beats that feeling. Stop thinking about what you don’t want and start thinking about what you do want and need to get the job done. Change your mindset and stop seeing trouble but come with solutions. Throughout your daily journey, stay curious for what other people have to share. “There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated”, sang Fat Mike of NOFX. Make sure everybody’s opinion counts and you celebrate ‘equal voice’. Share information and stay vulnerable within a trusted group, you’ll be more powerful than you could ever imagine.