Sean Massa's Labs

Detangling the Standup: Status Reports, Team Planning, Context Sharing, and Community Building

2022-01-04 by Sean Massa #productivity

Standups are often applied without understanding the problem they are solving. Broken down by potential problem being solved, this becomes more obvious:

Problem One Solution Typically Called
unclear project or task status Status Report meetings Standup
inefficient team collaboration Team Planning meetings Standup
unclear team problems and/or solutions Context Sharing meetings Standup
team member silos or other lacks of communication Community Building meetings Standup

Because of this, we have new problems:

  1. Not clearly solving a specific problem
  2. Not solving a problem with the best solution
  3. A daily interruption to deep work

What follows is a pragmatic and ideal approach to resolving this situation. The pragmatic approach is to understand so you can excel within that system. The ideal solution tries to change the system to better serve the team.

Note that the value of each process will vary by team composition and project management strategies.

Pragmatic Approach

Figure out what kind of standup you have will help you understand its purpose. That will help you accept the value it provides, even if it's not for you.

You can then try to fulfill that purpose to the best of your ability.

Status Report "Standups"

Individual contributions to these meetings focus on what was done, what's on track (or not), and what's up next. They are generally less useful to the individual contributors on a team.

These contributions are most useful to the team lead and/or stakeholders to understand the status of the project.

Yesterday I was working on the "Sign In With Google" story, but hit a weird issue with the integration. I spent a few hours debugging it. I should finish it this morning. Today, I'll finish that story and pick up the next one.

Context Sharing "Standups"

Individual contributions to these meetings focus on what was done, how, and/or why. They include specifics.

These contributions are generally more useful to the individual contributors on a team. They are less useful to the team lead.

Yesterday I was working on the "Sign In With Google" story, but hit a weird issue with the integration. I spent a few hours debugging it. Turns out, the documentation was wrong about how to differentiate between bad credentials and bad integration.

In my debugging, I built up a wrapper component that smooths over the confusing parts and more clearly validates inputs based on our needs. Make sure you use it in our other apps if you need to implement Google sign in.

Community Building "Standups"

Individual contributions to these meetings pay lip service to the premise of a "Standup", but spend a non-trivial amount of time on socializing.

These contributions may feel like a waste of time, but are likely useful to all team members. This kind of meeting can build the team community.

Yesterday I was working on the "Sign In With Google" story and I'll keep working on it today.

Last night I took my kids to a trampoline park for the first time. It was bonkers, but a lot of fun. I ended up jumping just as much as the kids.

Team Planning "Standups"

Individual contributions to these meetings focus on what needs to be done, especially before/after/together with other team members today or in the very near future.

These contributions are generally more useful to the individual contributors on a team, but the team lead needs to know as well.

Yesterday I was working on the "Sign In With Google" story, but hit a weird issue with the integration. I spent a few hours debugging it. I'm still not sure what the problem is. Can someone pair with me on this today, ideally this morning?

Ideal Approach

The best approach to tackling the Standup confusion is to make a list of these kinds of problems, decide if your team has any of those problems (solved for, or not), then ensure you have good solutions for the problems your team has.

For example, say your team has a Status Report "Standup". You would break out the problems:

Potential Problem We Have Problem? Current Solution
unclear project or task status yes Status Report "Standup"
unclear team problems and/or solutions no N/A
team member silos or other lacks of communication yes MISSING
inefficient team collaboration no N/A

In this example, you believe that your team only really has two (of these) problems that need solving: "unclear project or task status" and "team member silos or other lacks of communication".

The current Status Report "Standup" is solving the "unclear project or task status" problem. If you wanted to get rid of this meeting and solve that problem in another way, you could work with the Project Manager and/or Team Lead to find out why your project management system can't produce this without a daily update from individual contributors. From there, you could experiment with other solutions that fill that gap.

The problem "team member silos or other lacks of communication" is not being solved at all! You could propose that the team schedule other meetings with this explicit purpose. Or, if you want to expand the current "Standup", you could make socializing an explicit part of that meeting.

Alternate Solutions to "Standups"

If you have these kinds of "Standup", consider proposing these alternative solutions.

Almost all of these solutions reduce the number of meetings team members have. The effect of this will vary per person, but in general, it provides more uninterrupted time for deep work.

Status Reports

Team Planning

Context Sharing

Community Building

Take Away

Standups are not bad, just often misapplied. Understand the problems you need solved and what the best solutions might be. If that's a standup-style meeting, then go for it. I just don't think it should be the default.

Detangling the Standup: Status Reports, Team Planning, Context Sharing, and Community Building | Sean Massa's Labs