Product standups — Why & How
Product standups is an idea that I had sometime last year off the back of an incident at work. Here, I would like to share my thought process and experience in execution of a practice that is intended to bring you greater synergy between Product personnel in your organisation at a low cost.
Previous attempts
We have a large number of products, many moving parts with tight connections to each other. Often, one thing we are trying to do in one area has wide applications with other products. Because of this, our need to be aligned and in touch with each other is essential.
It’s not a problem new to us. We have tried other formats before. Fortnightly catch-ups with the entire Sydney product community (around 10–15 persons). It began enthusiastically enough but commitment from product owners fell short as the meetings were too long with floating and admittedly vague agendas.
We have also been having monthly product meetups — a half day learning sessions aimed at sharing product management skills. This however, did not touch on what was going on in each of our product worlds.
We needed something less costly.
Product standups as the rocket plan
The idea was to use product standups. Standups are a regime familiar to most, and marketed to be low cost. For it to work, it needed to be quick in nature but have sufficient leads for others to figure out common interests. It needed to leave enough clues for that to happen.
We first experimented with a small group of product owners, running it weekly for about a month. Once it reached a stage where we felt it was running well, we then expanded it to the remaining Sydney product teams. We have now extended it even further to other Melbourne product teams and hopefully soon, UK product team members.
There is evidence that it is working. We have found instances where we found we were solving the same problem on product metrics, resulting in us joining forces for the greater good. We have shared information when we found others would be interested for their innovation session. We had water-cooler conversations about our initiatives that had its seed sown from product standups. We invited ourselves to meetings that were happening that we otherwise would not have realised was happening. As to how long it was before we found this evidence, for us, it surfaced from the first standup we did.
Having had some experience in it now, there are some things that have been important to its success. Here, I would like to share some tips towards that.
Tips for a smooth Product standup
1) Set the scene
Set the scene with the group early. We communicated the format prior to the session and set up a communication page where I provided tips (much of which is shared below) on what to prepare. The format is loosely a 5 minute update per product representative. There is easy tendency to talk excitedly about the work you’re doing but remember that standup is not the place for epics of Ben-Hur proportions.
2) Prepare
We have specific JIRA boards with cards to represent our initiatives and features. These boards are prepared in advance. This includes making sure the information on boards such as dates is accurate.
Whether you use a virtual or physical board, some questions to ask ourselves include, if someone other than us had to review the board and its cards, would it make sense? Is the board too busy? Can we filter down the noise for the audience?
3) Purpose
Remember the purpose of the standups is to create synergy. Think about your audience. It is necessary to think about who else is in the standup and what they would benefit from hearing. Think about the commonalities you share and give emphasis to initiatives that others will benefit from hearing on. Say this out loud so they receive this signal loud and clear. Of the topics you touch lightly on, don’t brush it away but provide a brief summary of what it is.
4) Rehearse
Rehearse the flow of your update to ensure you cover the points you want to cover. Work out not only the sequence of navigating your boards, but also the topics that need emphasis.
5) Provide visual focus
As you are talking, hover over the card you are speaking about to provide a point of reference.
6) Listen attentively
Listen attentively to others — take the approach of looking for opportunistic gold to drop at any time. We might be solving the same problems together! It also demonstrates respect for others’ work.
7) Dangle the carrot
Don’t go into too much detail, but instead give enough to intrigue.
As an example, in one of the standups, I provided emphasis to a product metric initiative I was working on. I started by hovering over the card on the board and said that I wanted to point out this card, highlighting that it was a common win we were aiming for this year. I was definitely tempted to share more around my thoughts and progress on this, but in interest of time, I just mentioned I was looking for metrics of adoption and engagement and would share more detail with the group in our team channel later, or alternatively, they could review the artifacts within the initiative or reach out to me.
8) Be forgiving
It honestly doesn’t matter if you don’t nail all of the above, all of the time. I know I certainly don’t, but I take notes on what I can change next time for the better. It is human to err and you should always allow yourself room for improvement :)
Final thoughts
I hope you have found the above insightful and something you could bring to life in your organisation.
For us, product standups remain something we iterate on. We continue to seek feedback from the group to understand what else we can change to make it more effective.
Thank you for reading!
If you enjoyed this piece, please drop me a note saying so (either in response or via LinkedIn).
