TL;DR

If your daily standup meetings feel more like sit-downs, you’re not alone… In this blog post we’ll share practical tips on how to run a productive daily standup meeting and show you how Aqtos’ new Team Sync feature can help your team stay focused and productive.

^{Daily standups come from Agile and Scrum methodologies, which were developed in the early 2000s as a response to slow project management practices, especially in IT. The idea, borrowed from lean manufacturing and Toyota Production System concept, is simple: organize daily, brief meetings for teams to stay aligned with their tasks and changing priorities.}

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5 signs your daily standups are going nowhere

Here’s the harsh truth: many daily standups fail because they’re focused on updates, not actual outcome. Team members are used to reciting tasks and their to do’s like they’re reading off a shopping list, and just waiting for their turn to finish… nobody listens, and nothing changes. An infinite loop draining company’s time, culture, energy and morale.

These short, mandatory “productivity boosters” can paradoxically harm your team’s productivity and put people in a very dangerous comfort zone – settling into a daily routite without any actual, real progress, getting used to the status quo.

Does this sound familiar? Here are 5 symptoms to diagnose your daily standup routine:

• Groundhog day syndrome: You’re talking about the same things OVER and OVER again.
• Zombie zone-outs: Half the team is mentally checked out when a team member is speaking.
• Open, vague endings: Meetings end without clear actions.
• Pointless updates: Everyone knows most updates aren’t needed.
• MIA: People cancel or dread attending, usually in the last minute.

But that doesn’t have to be the case…

We created Team Sync to fix daily standups

After noticing several of our clients were creatively using Aqtos’ Kanban boards for their daily meetings – one even had each user share their screen when it was their turn to present, we knew there had to be a better way. So after a week of brainstorming, we built Team Sync – because we believe that the real magic in running efficient meetings, is in easy access to information and preparation.

The Team Sync feature we built into our business operating system is a single, clear page where a team leader can effortlessly shift between each team member’s tasks, filtering them by priority, client, or status as needed:

Team Sync also shows you the number of open tasks per user, and clicking on any task opens the task details immediately, without the need to navigate to another page or waste time recalling details. All of the task details, assignees, attachments and task discussion are right there.

Immediate benefits of using Team Sync

When you switch your daily standup meetings to Team Sync, expect to experience:

• Shorter, more productive meetings – because people easily see what is on their plate and all team members engage evenly, and one person is running the show: no more screen sharing rotations with awkward pauses or chasing someone’s tasks.
  
• Clearly defined actions and discussions – comments, attachments, or subtasks are created while the discussion is happening on the meeting. No more meeting minutes compliation being sent after the actual meeting and forgetting discussed details.
  
• Happier, more engaged teams – Aqtos Team Sync offers clean and calm UX, allowing everyone to be on the same page, understand what is talked about and what needs to be done.

10 tips for effective daily standups

As we dug very deep into the rabbit hole of daily standups when creating Team Sync, here are 10 tips that you can apply, even without using Aqtos Team Sync (yet :D), to make your daily standups more productive:

1. Pre-meeting updates: Team members should share their progress ahead of time on each task, this will assure current status and avoid unnecessary discussions.
   
2. Clear priorities: Instantly understand what’s urgent, what’s blocked, and what can wait – do not go into details of tasks, have a separate meeting for that.
   
3. Focused conversations: Discuss only what matters on the task, high level stuff.
   
4. Always end the meeting with actions: Each discussed item should have clear next steps aligned.
   
5. Keep it brief: Ideal timing for a daily standup is max 2 minutes per team member or task.
   
6. Only engage in discussion with blockers: This one is especially important for big teams – if you have a big team or huge list of tasks, skip the routine updates and discuss only the tasks that are blocked for any reason.
   
7. Rotate the facilitator: Allow different team members to take a lead role – this will help you keep things fresh and unexpected, as everyone will develop their own style.
   
8. Use visuals: When analyzing how to make the daily standups more efficient, we discovered that visuals help a lot! So that’s why Team Sync is so neat on the UX front. Use visuals to help everyone stay on the same page – literally!
   
9. Use timer: When the timer runs out, the meeting ends. Simple as that. If things have to be discussed further, schedule a new meeting with the affected team members, don’t drag everyone.
   
10. Feel free to skip it, if it’s not needed: Not every day needs a standup. If there are no new updates, give people their time back.

Summary

Use the tips above – or simply sign up for Aqtos and use Team Sync – unless your actual goal is to sabotage the meeting and the company. In that case, we recommend reading the CIA’s 1944 “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” which suggests holding long, unfocused discussions and meetings and revisiting the same issues endlessly.

Your team deserves better. Keep it sharp. Keep it short. Keep it moving.