What is a standup?
A standup is a brief meeting for team members to connect and share progress, identify obstacles, and align on focus areas. The term “standup” implies that attendees are on their feet during the meeting, which means teams should keep the meeting short to avoid the discomfort of standing for long periods. Standup meetings are popular in agile software development, but many types of groups can leverage this meeting style.
Some organizations use kanban project management software to support their standup meetings so teams can see tasks and workflows for a full picture view of projects. Kanban project management supports the agile methodology.
Basic structure of standups
Teams can tweak standup meetings to meet their specific needs, but most standups follow a general structure. Each team member provides an update on these three items.
- Accomplishments from yesterday: Each individual quickly shares what they worked on the previous day and what tasks they completed. The team member may provide a progress update if their work spans multiple days.
- Tasks and plan for today: Following a project update from the day prior, each individual gives a quick overview of what they are working on today. This part of the standup provides visibility into others’ workloads and helps strengthen alignment among team members.
- Blockers in the way: All team members have an opportunity to raise concerns and flag blockers. This helps ensure team members can get their issues addressed so they can continue to drive their work forward.
Benefits of standups
Standups align teams about a project’s progress and obstacles. Other key benefits of standups include the following.
- Increased team understanding. Standup meetings provide a quick look at how one person’s work impacts another’s, which reveals intersections and dependencies that are tough to see otherwise. These updates demonstrate how each individual’s tasks contribute to the bigger picture of the project.
- Stronger collaboration and communication. Although standups are quick connection points, they offer a recurring opportunity for team members to collaborate and communicate. This type of regular connection can be particularly valuable for remote teams.
- Improved accountability and transparency: Having to announce and share progress updates and accomplishments helps hold team members accountable for their work. Additionally, team leaders may find it easier to spot low-performing team members as a result of gathering regular updates from them.
Standup best practices
While teams customize the questions they ask and vary the length of their standups, all groups should follow some general best practices for successful results. Easy-to-follow steps for running effective standup meetings include:
- Choosing a consistent time. It’s essential to conduct standups at the same time every day as part of a uniform and predictable practice. Team members can more easily prioritize the standup and plan other meetings around it when the time doesn’t fluctuate.
- Encouraging the whole team to attend and participate. The entire team needs to be present and share updates with the rest of the group if standups are to be most effective. Meeting facilitators should motivate team members to stay for the entire standup, even if their update comes at the beginning of the meeting. Consider following the rule of starting and ending the session as a unit.
- Keeping the meeting short as possible. The golden rule for standup meetings is to aim for under 15 minutes so they feel short and impactful. If conversations go off-topic or a team member elevates new topics for discussion, the meeting facilitator should jot the topics down for discussion later and steer the standup back on track.
- Setting a clear purpose and format. Standup meetings don’t require complex, detailed meeting agendas and structures. However, facilitators should have a clear purpose for the standup meeting, and all participants should understand what type of information they need to provide during their update. Teams should ensure that all meeting attendees know the standup structure.
- Using a tool to conduct standups when necessary. It can be challenging for teams across time zones and locations to nail down a consistent time to perform daily standups. Leads should determine when it makes sense to conduct asynchronous standups via a bot or tool for a better experience. When using a tool, such as MS Excel, it’s even more important to be clear about the type of information each team member should offer.
Standup vs. status meeting
It's common to confuse a standup meeting with a status meeting, but the two are different.
A standup meeting is a quick daily meeting during which team members share progress, identify roadblocks, and align on focus areas. Generally used among internal team members, standups allow the group to sync up and plan how they intend to move closer to delivering their goal.
Status meetings are used to discuss the latest updates and progress on a specific project. They may include internal team members, clients, or a combination. They’re primarily used to keep everyone informed.
Team communication skills are critical for effective standups Read more about best practices for team communication.
Alyssa Towns
Alyssa Towns works in communications and change management and is a freelance writer for G2. She mainly writes SaaS, productivity, and career-adjacent content. In her spare time, Alyssa is either enjoying a new restaurant with her husband, playing with her Bengal cats Yeti and Yowie, adventuring outdoors, or reading a book from her TBR list.
