Changing the Daily Standup to Deliver Results
At Vivid Seats, our delivery teams operate on a fairly well-understood set of agile methodology rituals. We use this for many reasons, but most notably: it works well and it is fairly standardized across the industry. Our sprints are two weeks long, we have backlog grooming sessions, we have sprint planning sessions, and we demo our work to the rest of the company at an end-of-sprint demo that we call Showcase. Additionally, every team holds a daily standup meeting to ensure day-to-day progress and cohesion.
In my experience both as a team leader and previously as a contributor on a team, the most common format for the daily standup ritual is a circular style meeting. In this format, everyone on the team stands in a circle in a room or around their desks if they sit near one another. The team then goes through the circle one-by-one with each member discussing what they are working on, what blockers they may have, and any help they may need. This format is so common, it’s almost as routine as getting out of bed in the morning for most developers.
The circular daily standup isn’t the most effective for every team
As the sprints pressed on for my team, I noticed the daily standup had become repetitive and monotonous. It was becoming so routine that individuals would not put much thought into the actual goal or content of the standup itself. Put simply: the team wasn’t driving any valuable results from the meeting.
With the circular format, there was also a lack of cohesion in the discussion. Our teams are highly collaborative at Vivid Seats, so almost every story is worked on by more than one individual. Given this, it was common for a single story to be discussed by multiple people in the standup. However, if those individuals weren’t standing next to each other, the team naturally began to crosstalk around the circle and lose the focus. Additionally, when the other team members working the same story got “their turn” in the standup, they would have little to say as their work was already discussed by another individual.
How can the daily standup change for the better?
Once these problems became apparent, I worked with the team to gather feedback on our standup meetings. Additionally, we aligned as a team as to the goal of this meeting. Our standup meeting should make clear what is being worked on by each team member, any necessary opportunities to unblock work, and any opportunities to ship a release. Based on this, we decided to change the format of our daily standup.
We switched the focus from using the circle as the order to using our scrum board itself as the order. This is done in a simple top-down approach. We also now randomly select one person to lead the stand each day. This is usually a volunteer on the team. That person will go down the board, calling out each story that is in progress. If a story is already marked as done, there is no need to discuss it. Similarly, if something has not been started, we usually do not need to discuss it. When a story is called out, each individual working on that story’s subtasks will speak to their position and progress.
This shift also reinforces the principle of following the prioritization of the sprint itself. Stories at the top of the board should be delivered before stories lower on the board. When we follow the board top-down in the standup, any outliers of this principle are obvious.
Changing to a board-driven standup also ensures that we talk about each story that is in progress. As I mentioned, standup meetings have become so routine, it’s common for people to forget to bring something up during one. Also, we now go over the status of each subtask for each story that’s in progress and we naturally uncover blockers. For example, if a front-end task depends on a back-end task we discuss it as we get to that story on the board.
Reminder: it’s a goal-driven approach
At the end of the standup, the team member driving will quickly recap (visually) the status of the board. Based on this, we call out a few daily goals. The goals should be simple: release story x or unblock story y. This allows for us to focus our efforts where they are needed. Example: if a specific story has all but one subtask ready to release, we will focus efforts on the last remaining subtask to push the entire story across.
Takeaways from a new format
The new format for our daily standup has not increased the time of the standup. We are still able to finish the meeting in a matter of minutes. Additionally, it reinforces that we are focused on the sprint work at hand. Blockers are identified and steps to unblock them are prioritized. Help needed is uncovered naturally and the team works together to help each other more naturally. There’s also less pressure on individuals to “remember what to say” during the standup. Deciding on daily goals at end of the meeting reinforce the focus areas for the day and help us get more work done. We are able to release stories much more efficiently.
Should you adopt this format?
You may be wondering if it’s a good idea to immediately switch to this standup format. If you implement these changes, you will most likely see positive results. However, what’s most important is working with your team to drive improvements together based on your team’s goals. It doesn’t matter if you’re the manager or a team member. Ask your team: Is our standup doing anything for us? Are we getting anything from it? How could we change it to make it better? The answers may surprise you. Ultimately, there’s no blanket perfect-solution for how to work as a team. Use the feedback from your team and the lessons learned in this post to inform how your team can best work together.
Interested in learning more about Vivid Seats?
We believe that our teams should be collaborative and be able to work in ways that help them achieve success. Additionally, we are actively hiring for several roles on our engineering team. If you’re interested to learn more about open positions, check out our careers page at vividseats.com/careers for more information.
