Shoutout to a VP at a regional conference in Nashville who changed how I run my morning standup

I was at a leadership summit in Nashville last March and sat in on a talk by this VP from a mid sized logistics firm. He said his team does a 10 minute standup where nobody talks about what they did yesterday, only what they need from someone else today. I tried it with my station crew and it cut our morning wasted time by half, and we actually solve problems now instead of just reporting status. Has anyone else tried a format like that or found a better way to keep standups from dragging?

3 comments

3 Comments

richard_shah1mo ago

That format makes a ton of sense for teams that actually need to get things moving. We tried something similar but we added a quick 2 minute round at the end where someone flags a blocker they see coming in the next few days. That way you catch things before they become a problem. It takes a bit of discipline to keep everyone from rambling though. We had to put a timer on the wall to keep people honest.

jamiesingh1mo ago

Does that blocker round just turn into more chatter though...

ivanlewis5d ago

Hold up, that timer on the wall is wild. You actually had to put a physical timer up because people couldn't stop themselves from rambling? I've got one guy on my team who will turn a simple "need the database access fixed" into a 5 minute life story about his weekend. I'd be worried someone would throw a shoe at the timer if we tried that. How long did it take before everyone actually respected the buzzer?