Stand-up Meetings: How Effective are they?

What is a stand-up meeting?

As its name implies, it is literally a meeting where everyone stands up. Also known as a standing meeting, it’s a short gathering of team members, none of whom are permitted to sit down for the duration. The goal is to go over important tasks briefly and receive updates on progress.

This type of business meeting began in Japan, with the concept of all attendees standing together for a quick meeting based on the rugby scrum. It entered the business world in January 1986, when Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi wrote an essay for Harvard Business Review called The New Product Development Game.

They suggested companies must embrace speed and flexibility to succeed, claiming the traditional ways of managing project workflows were too slow. The essay suggested corporate teams must react to situations quickly, enabling them to “change plays” and “move up the field” to reach the common goal.

Who uses stand-up meetings?

Stand-up meetings were used initially by software development teams, but they began gaining popularity in other sectors too, including project management, marketing, product development and more. Today, they are used by just about every sector as a quick way of getting together, usually at the start of each day, for important updates.

The stand-up meeting doesn’t consist of lengthy discussions, as it lasts for only between five and 15 minutes on average. It gives team members the chance to touch base, although they will usually discuss the points in more depth one-to-one after the meeting.

This type of meeting is becoming more popular in the fast-moving marketing and media sector, where businesses need to keep on top of the latest trends to remain competitive. A quick meeting “on the go” to discuss aims and objectives, such as getting your website on to page one of the search results, can lead to some spontaneous good ideas.

Just as social media is a fast-moving environment, so is your meeting: touch on the importance of being socially seen and find out what team members are doing on the day to keep your campaigns on track.

What are the benefits of stand-up meetings?

Holding a short stand-up meeting provides a fresh and effective alternative to the traditional meeting, sitting round the table. It keeps the meeting short, but meaningful. Any meeting taking longer than 15 minutes has overrun, as the idea of a stand-up is that it’s quick.

Attendees can find out what they need to know and do, without feeling like they are wasting time. This builds and improves collaboration, as keeping it brief promotes follow-up conversations later in the day between team members.

Is this something that can help build a team bond?

A stand-up meeting encourages positive team building, as it can be difficult for employees to identify with a group of colleagues if they don’t engage with them regularly.

Meeting every day, albeit briefly, is an ideal way to keep the team cohesive. It gives people the chance to recognise and reduce roadblocks and problems by catching them early, rather than finding out a month down the line that there is an issue.

When team members then come together later in the day to follow up the business of the meeting, it encourages further collaboration in smaller groups, or between individuals.

Are there any tips for improving stand-up meetings?

Many companies make a rule that no devices, ever, can be used in the meeting. With it being a short meeting, there is no time for the disruptions of a mobile phone ringing, or someone deciding to check their emails mid-session.

Have a set agenda and don’t be fooled into thinking you don’t need one because it’s only a short meeting. The type of questions you should be asking include what work is currently in progress, what do team members expect to finish today, does anyone need extra help to complete a task, is anything currently held up and if so, what can be done to unblock the work?

Always keep it short – thinking back to the rugby scrum idea, remember that stand-ups are meant to be quick, energised conversations, not a lengthy debate into specific problems.

What mistakes should you avoid at all costs?

Don’t let anyone start rambling on, as each team member needs to be able to speak succinctly to give the meeting structure. Once someone diverts off the agenda, people are likely to start talking about more irrelevant things unrelated to the team. Before you know it, the meeting is over and you’ve wasted time.

The great thing about stand-up meetings is that they can be beneficial for the individual employee, the team and the company as a whole when run in an efficient manner.

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Dedicated to providing the best possible results for the client, stand-up meetings are a part of our day-to-day. We recognise that the input of every team member is paramount to our continued success.  Together, we are Page1.