7 Common Mistakes with Stand-up Meetings

Stand-up meeting primarily focuses on adaptive planning and continuous improvement

Commonly known as daily scrum or morning rollcall, the practice of stand-up meeting prevails in agile software development that focuses on collaboration between team members to overcome challenges and achieve goals. It is one of the many methodologies used in agile software development to identify issues and develop an effectiveaction plan. Moreover, it helps a team self-organize and work as a team by improving communication.

In spite of its prevalence in corporate world, it comes with surprise to see so many organizations not achieving any real purpose of stand-up meeting. Why? You will get the answer in this post:

1. Not Standing During the Meeting The only rule of stand-up meeting you cannot break.

Still, some seniormembers of a team take privileges to sit down that only induce others to follow. Remember that the purpose of a stand-up meeting is to make a quick overview issues in aproject. By sitting down on a chair, you lose that urge to make it short and brief which kills spirit of this type of meeting.

2. Micromanaging the Team Stand-up meeting is not about micromanaging your subordinates or asking them nitty-gritty details of their work.

Rather, it reinforces team collaboration by identifying issues and unifying a strategy. By asking your members questions like “what are your daily worktargets?” or “what is your work criterion?” you only disrespect their valuable time.

3. Choosing a Wrong Location Your choice of location plays an important role in success of your stand-up meeting.

Conducting a stand-up meeting in an open-air space will only distract attention of your members. Such a place allows distractions and commotions makeyour attendees loseconcentration.To getdesired results of your meeting, you need to choose room or big hall where your team mates can collaborate with each other without any external interference.

4. Failure to MakeRules Due to the nature of stand-up meeting, it is important to have certain rules and regulations.

Make rules of your stand-up meeting and share it with your team members. Make them clear aboutthings, for example switching off cell phone and no chit-chats,so that you can get the most out oftheir10-15 minutes.

5. Being Late in the Meeting Stand-up meeting is too short to come late.

As a scrum master, it should be your responsibility to make sure that everyone comes on time. Due to brevity of stand-up meeting, you need to make it clear toeach of your team members to show up on time.Pose a penalty for late comers.

6. Not Keeping Focus on the Agenda Remember that the idea of a stand-up meeting is to recognize challenges of a project and find solutions.

So, you need to keep your focus on identifying the issues and developing an action plan. By not paying attention to these core issues, you willlose track of your project and impede its progress.

7. Only Scrum Master Speak While Others Listen Often, a stand-up meeting is led by scrum master who happen to be a project manager or team leader.

Unlike a team meet, a stand-up meeting is timed to 10-15 minutes todiscuss issues of a project. So, the role of a leader should not be more than directing flow of conversation. However, when you become the only voice in a stand-up meeting, then you deprive others of voicing their concerns which only kills its spirit.

Remember that a stand-up meeting is about developing an action plan to overcome challenges in a project. By not doing the above mentioned mistakes, you can ensure collaboration in your team and make your project a success.

By Ashley Everston, an editor and Quality assurance manager at firm where students  can get dissertation writing help. When not working, She enjoys reading different lifestyle, education and graphic design blogs, and also writing for different blogs on her favorite topics.

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