Mgmt 6061 - Stand-Up Meetings

[pic 1][pic 2]

[pic 3][pic 4]

Introduction

Stand-up meetings are designed for agile project development to address the status report and issues of team members. It is sometimes referred to as “Roll Call”. It is strictly time-boxed with the maximum time duration of 15 minutes. Like any strategies, there are pros and cons of the stand-ups. However, if done effectively, it has the potential to reduce the internal conflicts, if any, and bring a lasting impact on the project team by motivating them. The goal is to inspire the team by reconnecting them with the vision of the company and unifying it with theirs. Here, we are discussing the ways to carry the daily stand-ups effectively and how to deal with some of the critical pitfalls lying in the way.

1. What is a Stand-up a meeting?

A stand-up meeting is commonly referred to as a short organizational meeting which is being held each day. Generally, the meetings have a time duration of five to fifteen minutes long, and it is sometimes referred to as daily scrum. Such kind of meeting helps to give the real-time status of the project and eliminate any possible challenges during the development of the project. Mostly, the stand-up meeting is used in the Agile development process, but it can be implemented in other developmental methodologies too. In the stand-up meeting, all the team members are called up for the meeting but the meeting will not postpone due to the absence of any member.

The term “stand up” comes from the practice of standing while on the project meeting instead of sitting. Because of the discomfort in standing up for a long time, keep the time to a really short period. The meeting is generally held at the same place and the same time at the beginning of each working day. The goal of the meeting is to identify the obstacles before they turn in to a serious issue. (unknown, 2017)  

In a stand-up meeting, each team member may get a chance to answer three questions. They are:

• What was completed after the previous day’s meeting?
• What are the objectives of today's meeting?
• What challenges must be addressed?

2. What is the “value” of a Stand-up meeting?

One of the main aims of the meeting is to build a relationship between the employees. Through this meeting, the team members can share their problems faced during the development of the project. The daily gathering of the team members and helping each other to resolve the issues will slowly develop a strong interpersonal bond between them, which in turn result in a high rate of knowledge transfer. The structure of the meeting is to promote the follow-up conversation as well as to identify the issues before they get messy. In each of the meeting, the workers will analyze the progress since the last stand up, forecast the work until the next stand up and creating a solution for the unsolved issues.