When Should You Have Daily Standups?

Daily Standups are a very polarizing topic in the software development world. They are a popular Agile ritual, and nearly everyone has a variety of experiences with them. In general, I have expressed strong opposition to them. However, there are a few cases where they do offer compelling value. I will tell you when and why you ought to hold daily standups.


Daily Standup Meeting

What is a Daily Standup meeting?

A Daily Standup is a short, time-boxed meeting that typically occurs at the same time each workday. The traditional format involves team members literally standing up (to keep the meeting brief) and taking turns to answer three questions:

  1. What did you work on yesterday?
  2. What are you working on today?
  3. Are there any blockers or impediments in your way?

The meeting is meant to last no longer than 15 minutes, regardless of team size. It’s not intended for detailed problem-solving or extensive discussions - those should be taken offline with relevant team members after the standup.

The primary purposes of a Daily Standup are:

  • Provide visibility into work progress
  • Identify obstacles quickly
  • Promote team collaboration
  • Keep everyone aligned on team goals
  • Surface coordination needs between team members

This ritual originated from Scrum methodology but has been widely adopted (and adapted) by teams using various other project management approaches.


When you should have Daily Standups?

For all of these Daily Standup purposes, it’s best to conduct them in this format for a limited duration, and regularly re-evaluate the effectiveness and need for the meetings. When they are serving your primary purposes, keep them on the schedule. When they are not, discontinue them.

1. Team Reconfiguration

For a new, or a newly reconfigured team, daily standups can be a good way to acclimate the team to the current norms and social dynamics. It’s a higher bandwidth form of interaction than pure work-tracking tools, and so it can be helpful in helping the team to learn the personalities of the team members, and the general team ethos.

When you are conducting standup meetings for this purpose, the highest value bit is the social interactions and discussions. The actual work-tracking is secondary. Encourage some level of technical discussion, but still encourage deep dives to happen outside of the meeting, to keep things tight and focused.

2. Highly Non-Linear Projects

With linear projects, the work should be treated more like a simple factory pipeline. However, when the team is working on novel types of projects, or research projects, the work is usually highly complex, highly unpredictable, and largely exploratory. This type of work is difficult to quantify, and difficult to track. Additionally, since it’s not known-quantity work, even the techniques, requirements, and processes are in flux. This is where discussion and collaborations are massively useful.

When you are conducting standup meetings for this purpose, the most important thing is knowledge sharing and collaboration. The goal is to distribute knowledge across the team, to share techniques, concerns, ideas, and working approaches.

3. Extremely Short Projects

For extremely short projects, these types of status meetings are useful for high-levels of synchronization. Many short-project teams have not worked together before, and so having shared meetings bridges the variety of assumptions and previous project contexts all the contributors are used to. It also is a highly effective way to keep everyone on task, and making clear and consistent progress.

For this type of meeting, it may even be valuable to hold 1-3 meeting per day, to maximize synchronization and bridge the tooling and communication gaps for maximum project success.


Summary

Daily Standups are a powerful yet costly team synchronization tool that should be used thoughtfully and purposefully. Through the three scenarios we’ve explored - team reconfiguration, non-linear projects, and extremely short projects - a common thread emerges: Daily Standups provide the most value in situations of high uncertainty or rapid change.

An interesting pattern emerges when analyzing the effectiveness of Daily Standups: their value often follows an inverse curve relative to team maturity and project stability. The meetings provide maximum value during periods of flux - whether that’s team composition, project direction, or tight deadlines. However, as teams stabilize and processes mature, the relative value of these meetings tends to decrease, sometimes dramatically.

This insight suggests that Daily Standups should be viewed as a temporary scaffolding rather than a permanent fixture. Like training wheels on a bicycle, they’re crucial when you need them but should be removed once they’ve served their purpose. Teams should regularly evaluate whether their Daily Standups are still serving their intended purpose and be willing to modify or discontinue them as circumstances change.

While this post has focused on when Daily Standups can provide value, it’s equally important to recognize when they become counterproductive. In another post, I’ll explore the scenarios where Daily Standups can harm team productivity and what alternatives might better serve your team’s needs.

What has been your experience with Daily Standups? Have you found them valuable in scenarios different from those mentioned above? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!