I’ve been hearing far too many stories about folks having their daily stand-ups take too long. So, I feel compelled to write about stand-ups and how to keep them brief.
Full disclosure: I am not a PM nor a Scrum Master; I am an engineer and my stance on stand-ups is viewed as an engineer solely.
If 15 minutes is not enough time for you to get through your stand-up, then something is wrong. As an engineer, you have three main questions you will need to answer:
That’s it. Done. Go!
If you are having lengthy discussions about every little thing you mention during your update, then that is why your stand-up is taking too long. Stop that. Just remember to stick to those three questions and anything more than that should be discussed outside of the stand-up. Try and be respectful of other people’s time. If you are discussing something at length, that is time taken away from another person’s updates, which will make you go over your allotted time, which means everyone at that stand-up now has less time away from doing actual work!
“Painting the bikeshed” is a phrase that comes from the BSD mailing list and it could possibly be why your stand-ups are running too long. If you have folks that give their feedback for every little detail of someone else’s update, then send them that bikeshed link. Once again, I cannot stress this more, discussions that are thought of as quick, add up after time.