Daily standups

Daily standups keep engineers on track of what the rest of the team is doing in relation to their own activity. A daily stand up can either be a quick 15 minute meeting, or a short set of gists over chat in a common channel.

Questions to answer

Each member communicates answers to the following questions as briefly as possible.

What did you finish from the last workday?

It is the quickest and roughest metric of your personal velocity, and keeps track of what you were or were not able to finish the day before.

If a person isn't able to finish all that they had planned to do yesterday, it then transfers over to what they are going to do today. The inability to finish a task may translate to something that blocks their way, which can be discussed as point number three.

What are you going to do today?

This avoids conflicts on people working on the same things unknowingly, and can help measure whether delegation to other team members is needed when somebody is overloaded.

Is there anything standing in your way?

In order for a team to be truly agile and cooperative, communicating blockers is crucial. When communicating what's getting in your way, a team can determine "who helps who, with what".

Example

Here's an example of what you may report in a standup on a busy day:

Yesterday:

  1. Finalize naive 3D packing algorithm [SLERP-32]
  2. Integrated packing algorithm with Stuart [SLERP-37]
  3. Create commission based income flow for Stripe [SLERP-52] (Did not finish yesterday)

Today:

  1. Continue on stripe task undone from yesterday.
  2. Upgrade expug [SLERP-22]

Blockers:

  1. Stripe sandbox API key is not working on their side

Keeping track

A single point of authority must be able to track daily standups as it helps:

  • Quantify or assess performance reviews;
  • Check for points of improvements needed for a software engineer; and
  • Guide in assessing total velocity per sprint.

Other notes

  • Communicate the above as briefly as possible.

  • When doing it in person, try to answer the three questions as briefly and as clearly as you can.

  • When writing it over chat, try to write concisely and straight to the point.

  • Do not elaborate on technicalities inside code or business, as it can be discussed later when a teammate who helps with your blocker gets the time to approach and help.