The magic of the daily demo

This is the area where we do our daily demos. It’s starting to get a bit cramped with upwards of 15 people attending each day, but the couch and comfy chairs help. We have a TV, a laptop, an Apple TV for AirPlay, a Google Jamboard for fancy white boarding, and some other tools to allow us to show off our work, sketch up other ideas, and to make it easy for remote employees to join in.

If you are trying to build something great you may be missing one of the most important rituals — the daily demo.

My team meets every day at 4 pm for a daily demo and critique, where people show off what they have been working on. We give people a full day to work on stuff and then we get together at the end of the day to give each other feedback and help. It’s really that simple.

The reason I call it magic is that this isn’t some boring meeting where people are checked out. Or some work function without a purpose. This is where we push the product and our company forward.

These sessions are lively and fun. We have the kind of deep debates about the best ways to do things that other meetings should have. We also give each other real, honest feedback in ways that other meetings lack and in ways that feels empowering.

There are so many meetings I’d rather not attend. So many of them sap my energy. The daily demo is never one of them. It fills up my cup, and gives me the strength to do kick ass work every day.

In the daily demo there is always something visual to see. There are always lively debates to be had. There are people bouncing up to the white board and people quickly throwing something together in a Sketch file. Over the course of one daily demo, we can significantly push forward the work…