Running a daily stand-up meeting or a scrum is a crucially important aspect of iterative, agile software development. On the way into the office each day, at least in the subconscious the daily stand-up (scrum) should be on each team member’s mind and it should be the first thing that happens once the team is assembled.

There are many advantages of running a daily stand-up (scrum); everyone knows what’s going on, the management get a regular and succinct update, the team get their issues sorted out quickly, its always clear how much progress is being made or not, issues and challenges are openly highlighted immediately, the day after they occur.

But introducing the daily stand-up (scrum) to a team has its challenges so this article offers advice on how to facilitate that change and make it more effective. This advice is also effective if the team is already running daily stand-up (scrum) but the momentum is running out. It’s also intended to preserve, and indeed promote the structure of the daily stand-up (scrum) – the 3 special questions – what did you do yesterday? – what will you do today? – have you got any issues?

1. Ensure the daily stand-up (scrum) starts promptly – the daily stand-up (scrum) should be a quick meeting – we run through a team of 14 in between 10 and 15 minutes every day – in order for it to be quick it must start promptly. The daily stand-up (scrum) is also the cornerstone of discipline for the team so it must be respected.

2. The scrum master or project manager should offer a quick and brief intro relating to any milestones in the schedule for today and close with a quick and brief mention of any milestones for tomorrow. The intro will prompt or remind team members to provide reference to the milestone in their update if it’s relevant.

3. Bring everyone to the daily stand-up (scrum) – testers – designers – analysts – product owners – not just the developers – often the issues are better articulated this way and are often raised by more than one person each with his/her own perspectives.

4. Change the order in which people speak – ask the more vocal and confident team members to speak first – or mix up vocal with less vocal to try and encourage confidence and detail.

5. Make sure that any dialogue is cut short quickly and diplomatically and then follow it up immediately after the meeting so that the team members involved appreciate the benefit.

6. Make sure that tasks are granular enough so that team members have something to say – if a developer is working on a piece that takes 5 days he/she might give exactly the same update each day for the duration – ensure that the developer has defined daily or smaller tasks so that his/her update includes some indication of progress.

Make your daily stand-up (scrum) a success!