A ‘stand-up’ is a quick meeting for a people manager to sense-check how their team is going and where to offer support.

A stand up covers 3 main points:

  1. What a person worked on and achieved yesterday
  2. What a person is working on today and hoping to achieve
  3. What’s blocking a person from doing their work

If a person needs to talk about a blocker, they should:

  • hold their thought until stand up is over
  • chat with you or the person who can help them solve the problem after stand up is over

A stand up doesn’t cover:

  • a list of meetings someone is going to
  • detailed descriptions of daily duties
  • drawn-out discussions to solve problems
  • EFFORT
    Low
  • TEAM SIZE
    2 or more
  • GOOD FOR
    Connected and engaged teams

Step 1: schedule your stand up

Schedule your stand up as a recurring calendar invite to all team members.

Make sure it’s a time that suits the diverse needs of each of your team members.

Think of things like this:

  • Do some people work better earlier or later in the day?
  • Does anyone have kids or caring responsibilities that mean they need to start late or leave early?
  • Is there a time to avoid due to other work commitments?

Step 2: hold it

Physical

Hold your first stand up and reiterate the three main points of stand up.

Go around the team and have each person speak.

You can be creative with this, such as throw a ball to the person who needs to speak.

People don’t have to stand up. This is a figure of speech. Check if anyone has accessibility requirements and make appropriate changes.

Remotely

Use a tool of your choice to hold the stand up.

This could be a video conferencing tool or even a phone call on speaker. Just make sure it is accessible for all team members.

You can even hold your stand up using a tool like Slack or Teams where each team member writes their update in a group thread.