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> More than anything, this sounds like no one was actually leading or moderating the standups.

One of my clients hired a former U.S. Marine. I so enjoyed attending the meetings he ran. He managed the clock with ruthless efficiency.

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alistairSH a day ago | parent | next [-]

Tangent: Way back when I was in Scouts, the scout master was a USN missile submarine captain. He was a quirky guy, not the least of which was his ability to schedule things to ridiculous levels of detail... cross-country trip to go backpacking, and he'd have a lunch stop at 13:14, gas stop at 17:29, on base (we would stay in open barracks at military bases across the country) by 16:09. And wouldn't you know it... we were usually within a few minutes either way. And he managed to pack a lot of side-trips/value into the days we were on the road. It was really wild.

	▲	pc86 a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I would never suggest people join the military to learn how to run a schedule correctly, but I will say that it's hard to find someone who was in the military - and borderline impossible to find someone who was senior in the military, especially a senior NCO - who is habitually late.
	▲	harrall 20 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I once did an international camping and backpacking trip like this where we had everything down to a minute. The key is to check your watch after you complete any activity. For example, you read that a 1000ft climb hike takes 2 hours and you do it in 2.5 hours. Do this over months and you gain the ability to make perfect estimates. Turns out that feedback loops are useful. Also applies to all other skills. Funny thing is I’m mostly a buy tickets to fly next week and wing it kind of person but I wanted to try it one time for kicks. Winging it is a whole different set of skills. Get good at both and planning becomes your jam.

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watwut a day ago | parent | prev [-]

One problem with efficiently running standups is that ... they are the most useless meeting in the world. It is short, ok, but nothing whatsoever would change if it did not happened.

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greggsy 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They are not useless to me.

I need to keep my fingers on the pulse of what happened yesterday and what’s happening today, and what potential impediments might arise to make key decisions without asking everyone.

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mcv 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I strongly disagree. It's a brief moment every day to see everybody, check up on what everybody is working on, and notice if anyone needs help. Every part of that is useful.

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watwut 17 hours ago | parent [-]

It is quick status report, purely form exercise. You hear names of tasks you know nothing about and have no idea whether you can help. All the useful parts happen when it is ineffective and people discuss details.

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whstl 16 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It shouldn’t be a status report, though. This information is already in Jira or whatever.

Someone running a standup meeting where people just repeat information is by definition not doing an efficient job at all.

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watwut 14 hours ago | parent [-]

There is only so much information one can fit into 1 minute long report. The thread is literally defining effective standup and a quick one where people answer the "what have you done, what you will do" questions. The one where discussion is cut so that it is as short as possible.

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whstl 8 hours ago | parent [-]

You're the one complaining about "hearing names of tasks you know nothing about" but you're also the one saying it should consist of "what have you done, what you will do".

It doesn't. :)

Stand ups are not for status reports, they're for syncing. "I have a big PR coming so please check it today". "I am still stuck with the sprongler bifurcator but I expect to be over tomorrow". "I need to involve someone from team X, their stuff is blocking me". "Ok, Y, let's chat after this meeting".

	▲	watwut 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I did not defined what standups are supposed to be. But I would point out that the senteces you suggested are irrelevant to other peoppe in 95% cases.

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elktown 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And this is painfully obvious to anyone not working in tech, where there seem to be some kind of blind spot for such obvious micromanagement bs as standups. "Yeah, we really trust you, but you need to give a status update in-person every day on-top of keeping a up-to-date written log".

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mcv 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

What does management have to do with it? They're not involved. It's for the team.

	▲	elktown 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The closest middle-manager? They come with a whole range of titles.

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zmgsabst 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

We did the same in apartment maintenance — a career completely unlike tech.

We’d stand around the managers office, take thirty seconds to say what we planned to do, what dependencies we had (eg, who needed the truck when) and then went off to do our tasks. Even though we also tracked project work in a time system.

A real standup isn’t that unusual, nor micromanagement. Though it can turn into that, when badly utilized.

	▲	elktown 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> what dependencies we had (eg, who needed the truck when) So in practice, that's a truck-sync meeting that needs to happen every day due to shifting needs and thus actually useful. Seems like there is room for improvement there but might not be worth it for them? I also don't think certain management cultures would ever want to skip reaffirming the workplace hierarchy on the regular, but that's certainly not a culture I'd want to work in - but at least that's usually honest that it's just status updates to the boss and not hidden behind some nice sounding methodology bs. IME, a standup is just repeating JIRA tasks 99/100 that's not useful for anyone beyond perhaps the extroverts that just wants the face-time, people who rarely reads chats, and ofc management for said office politics. Usually you've already had a weekly/bi-weekly planning meeting distributing tasks in a rather granular size that are available for everyone to see progress on. Then you have easy-to-access direct communication channels through Slack or similar for ad-hoc questions to anyone at any time. Have a question? Just ask? If that's not enough I'm a lot more inclined to believe that the team is dysfunctional. I genuinely think it's a shame that the autonomy & trust that other fields can offer people with proven qualifications/past work is not being offered, instead you're stuck in various infantilizing rituals when you're building a house that you've already built multiple times and don't need hand-holding to do so. But there's some serious amounts of gaslighting going on in the field to explain that a tracker on your car is trust & autonomy.