Many teams have adopted the practice of holding daily stand-up meetings over long Zoom calls. These calls are bound to leave you tired and cause Zoom fatigue right at the start of the day. Isn't it a waste of time to have long meetings and discuss your tasks when the same could be accomplished with quick daily standups?

But, you could ask what precisely is it?

What is a daily stand-up meeting?

Let's start with the basics: "What are daily stand-ups?

The daily stand-up is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the development team to plan for the following 24 hours.

According to SearchSoftwareQuality, A daily stand-up meeting is a short organizational meeting that is held each day. It lasts between five and fifteen minutes and is called a stand-up, a morning roll-call or a daily scrum. 

So, basically, the team meets every day at the same time to keep everyone up to date on the information that is critical for coordination: each team member quickly discusses any “completed” contributions and any roadblocks they face. In most cases, the meeting takes place in front of the task board.

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Why is a daily standup meeting important?

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Teams can use stand-up meetings to align short and long-term goals, personal tasks, and general team initiatives. The purpose of the standup meeting is to make the team aware of their current state and roadblocks, not to hold a lengthy conversation or attempt to fix problems.

Daily Scrums increase communication, eliminate additional meetings, identify and remove development roadblocks, emphasize and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team's information stage. Consider whether a technology that allows speedier communication between team members would work better than a daily meeting if your standup meetings tend to deteriorate into talks about who can swap shifts or take on whole other tasks.

Daily stand-up meetings are a recurrent solution to a specific set of issues that arise when people attempt to work together as a team. The purpose of those sessions is to obtain quick information and make quick suggestions, rather than to deliver status updates to stakeholders (though they may be present), and they continue even if certain team members are unavailable.

What are the 3 questions to ask in a daily standup?

If you've ever attended a standup, you're certainly already aware of the three daily standup questions:

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. Anything blocking your progress?

The objective of these questions may appear simple at first glance. But the three questions, taken together, reveal the four primary goals of every team check-in:

1. Evaluation: How is the team doing in terms of achieving its objectives?
2. Openness: Is everyone in the team in sync and aware of what work has previously been performed. And what remains to be done?
3. Adaptation: Do we need to reschedule today's activities depending on happenings from the last business day?
4. Roadblocks: Is there anything obstructing specific team members?
   

Who should attend the daily standup?

The daily stand-ups should ideally be attended by everyone participating in the team. If the project is still in its early stage, it would be ideal if the stakeholders could also attend the daily stand-ups. That way the team can get constant feedback from them and also know about the new initiatives taken which in turn will be beneficial to one way or the other.

What is the purpose or the objective of the daily standup meeting?

Your team's information will flow easily if you have daily standup meetings. In a typical hierarchical management system, information flow is carefully managed. The information is passed through levels of middle management before it can be given down to employees or up to executives.

A flat management style and a high degree of member autonomy are valued in modern teams. Hence, daily standups help bring your team together and remain on the same page. There is an open and transparent exchange of information within the organization.

Stand-ups are a great way to encourage and drive your team ahead, but even when done correctly, they may quickly become the most wasted moment of the day. The explanation for this might be that it is carried out by a small group of people who all work in the same place and are aware of each other's activities. The team might unanimously opt to forego daily stand-ups in favour of weekly revisions.

See also: 15 Best Zoom Apps, Bots & Integrations to make your Zoom team meetings productive and fun

Conclusion‍

And so, daily standups are becoming an inevitable part of the new age work culture. Consider these as an opportunity rather than a chore to bring your whole team together to define the day's priorities and draw on each other's knowledge is critical for tight cooperation and maintaining an effective, streamlined, and obstacle-free workflow.

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