Tips to Run an Effective Stand-up Meeting

The term 'stand-up' with regards to meetings has been coined from the practice of having the attendees remain standing during the meeting. The discomfort caused by standing long hours helps in keeping the meeting short and to the point.

When you are working in a team, it is very important that all the team members are synchronized towards achieving a common goal. Running a stand-up meeting daily is a tool to achieve that.

When conducted effectively, it helps the team stay aligned to set targets, provides visibility, catches loopholes and obstacles early, and also helps evaluate the overall status of a project. In a nutshell, it is important for better overall communication and performance.

Yet, it is seen that many times, these stand-up meetings go wrong, and instead of being productive, they become a total waste of time. Many things can go wrong - the meeting stretching over its stipulated time, team members getting distracted, trailing off the topic, etc.

In order to run an effective and rewarding stand-up meeting, you should stick to certain rules. Here are some tips that will help you run your stand-up meeting effectively.

Ideally, the stand-up meeting should be held at a fixed time everyday. This will help all the team members to get into a routine and plan their own work accordingly. Having it daily also helps in continuously assessing the overall status of a project.

When a team starts with a stand-up meeting, they generally follow the rule of standing in the beginning. As time passes by, some members may try to sit or go somewhere.

One should understand that to keep standing is not just a formality, but an important factor of a stand-up meeting, so as to make it effective. It helps keep a check on the time. The logic is simple, nobody wants to stand for an hour and talk. To make is easy, hold the meeting in a room where there are no chairs.

If somebody doesn't turn up on time, there is not point in wasting the time of everybody else by waiting for them.

Instead, the meeting should start at its scheduled time, and the others can join later. If late coming becomes a regular thing, the defaulters should be taken to task.

In order to get the status of each team member and to evaluate the status of the project more objectively, make every one answer these three basic questions.

√ What work they have done since the last meeting?
√ What is their job-target for today?
√ Is there any major issue in achieving the target today?

Keeping it short and concise is another key factor for an effective stand-up meeting. If the meeting runs over an hour, then surely it is not a stand-up meeting. People will lose interest and that itself makes it pointless to have a stand-up meeting in the first place.

Stipulate 3 - 5 minutes to every individual to put their points across. By defining your meeting agenda, you can achieve that. Also, it is important that all team members prepare for the meeting in advance.

You can make a chart with rows for tasks to be done, tasks in progress, and task not started yet.

One of the mistakes a facilitator of stand-up makes is to solve the problems of team members then and there, in the meeting.

Stand-ups should only be about having a status update, and not problem solving. It is not worthwhile to waste everybody's time on an individual's problem. Instead, schedule a separate meeting for problem-solving with the individual in question. If you start discussing problems in stand-up meetings, then it is bound to stretch over its stipulated time.

While speaking, the team members should address the team and not the facilitator. This is an important factor for effective communication among team members.

These small steps will ensure that your stand-up meetings are productive and rewarding. It may take a bit of time to establish a sound stand-up process, but once it is in place, the rewards it reaps are very beneficial.