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The daily standup that takes 45 minutes (and why ee're all pretending it's fine)

Published: April 7, 2025
software-teamsprocess

The Scene We All Know

Picture it: 9 AM, another "quick" daily standup. The meeting call loads, everyone's there with their morning coffee, and someone kicks off with the classic "what did you do yesterday, what are you doing today, any blockers?"

Sounds reasonable, right? Should take 10 minutes, maybe 15 if there's actually something blocking someone. Even if that were the reality I am not sure it is reasonable, but let's go with that for now.

The reality though, is, it is probably now 9:47 and someone is still rambling on about some super niche CSS issue they came across or somebody is giving a full blown architecture talk on a refactor nobody asked for and everybody else has zoned out or is looking at another screen and doing something else.

What's the problem?

It doesn't start like this, it creeps in over time and eventually it just takes 30-60 mins a day for something that should take 5 mins. It is supposed to be a status update right, so somebody needs to take control, start a timer if you must and give each person x time, people should leave the call at finish time, but everybody feels that's way to rude.

Anyway, it's broken.

Solution?

I alluded to one above - just have hard and clear rules and stick to them. If it is a status meeting then it should go like this.

  • YESTERDAY - One sentence
  • TODAY - One sentence
  • BLOCKERS - Actual blockers. Not things you are looking at, things you are slightly concerned about. Things that mean you cannot move forward.

However I feel like the whole idea is wrong, if it is a simple status update like I have outlined above then is there a need for a meeting? No. Move it async. Something like a slack geekbot can ping each person and ask those 3 questions and dumb the response in a daily channel. From there threads can breakout if needed and calls can be setup from the people with the problem and the people who can help fix it.

And everyone else can get on with their day however they see fit!

Is it really that simple?

I think so. But maybe not, maybe there is more to the standup, but the current implementation I have experienced at multiple orgs is awful.