Software Development Standups: Are they Worth it?
Stands can be absolutely pointless or they can be incredible useful. It really depends on how they done. They are meant to bring a team together, to contribute ideas and to inform should anyone need help with something.
The issue is, developers are often working on different projects or tasks that really dont concern everyone else. From my experience the following tends to happen; You go around the circle and each person drones on about a list of thing things they have to do on the current day ahead. Me personally, I tend to tune out and focus on what I’m going to say when it is my turn.
The issue as I see it is that people tend to do two things:
- They provide enough information about what they are going to be working on to waste everyone’s time.
- They provide not enough information for anyone to truly understand what they are on about.
So should stand ups be used as a means of listing out what you are working on? I would say it depends really. Ask yourself, is what I’m saying relevant to anyone else? Is it likely to evoke a useful response from anyone? If the answer to these two questions is no then it doesn’t really need to be said.
The ideal stand up would just consist of people flagging up things others should know and things which they need more information or assistance with.
Another issue I have with stand ups is that they tend to be absolutely enforced. This is sometimes the issue with processes. When they are in place people religiously stick to them. But how agile is this really? Is it agile to have meetings when no one has anything useful to say?
