How do you facilitate effective stand-ups in a remote setting?

Encourage active tool usage, prompt team members to regularly update user stories, and emphasize active participation in stand-up calls for a more engaged and effective remote stand-up experience.

To ensure effective remote stand-ups: - Develop a team Working Agreement that outlines the stand-up meeting's Do's and Don'ts. - Rotate the facilitator role daily among team members to promote accountability. - Maintain up-to-date Jira cards reflecting the latest progress for team members. - Discuss current tasks, challenges faced, and seek assistance if needed. - Redirect any off-topic discussions back to the stand-up's agenda promptly. - Encourage video participation for all members to enhance collaboration during remote stand-ups.

My team utilizes Atlassian projects to collaborate remotely. In my role of a Project Manager, I encourage my developers to join me on camera (We use Google Meets), and I screen share our active sprint within Jira. Specific notes are added to their tickets, but generalized or summary notes are stored within the linked Confluence page. Confluence, Jira and Google Meets all integrate nicely into Slack, allowing us to keep communication lines open and transparent. Our entire company uses these tools and has access to them from their laptops and cellphones. And as part of our onboarding process, we ensure each new employee learns how our company uses them.

In my team, we rely on Zoom for video conferencing and JIRA for tracking our progress. Typically, the scrum master takes the lead by sharing the screen, ensuring everyone is aligned and actively participating. One strategy I've found effective for fostering responsibility, enhancing team comprehension, and mitigating the risk of scrum master dependency is delegating meeting leadership to key participants from time to time. This not only encourages a deeper process understanding but also distributes ownership and expertise across the team, reducing reliance on any single individual.

Too many tools sometimes turn into swivel chairing fatigue. We prefer to use Google Workspace as one stop shop at TELUS to meet our collaboration needs. From G-meet to meeting notes in Docs, Action items in Tasks and Tracking progress in Sheets provides a unified and consistent interface.

Helpful: Using a structured agenda for stand-ups to set clear expectations. It ensures everyone knows what to cover and minimizes off-topic discussions, improving efficiency. Disagree: Dictating strict time limits for each team member. While time management is crucial, rigid limits can stifle valuable discussions and impede team collaboration. Example: In a remote stand-up, a team member went over their time limit to explain a critical issue. Instead of cutting them off, we allowed them extra time, uncovering a major blocker and ultimately speeding up our project. Flexibility can lead to better outcomes.

Create a collaborative environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing updates, asking questions, and raising concerns. Foster a culture of active listening and mutual support. Use techniques like round-robin speaking or randomly calling on team members to ensure everyone has a chance to contribute.

To facilitate effective stand-ups in a remote setting, set clear expectations for engagement and collaboration. Focus on celebrating achievements and addressing hurdles. Encourage team members to share successes and identify any blockers to their tasks. Use the stand-up to review the burn down chart, ensuring the team's pace aligns with sprint goals. If off track, collaboratively explore solutions to improve progress. Communicate that the purpose of virtual stand-ups is to foster unity and problem-solving, not to micromanage. This approach helps maintain focus on sprint objectives and enhances team cohesion in a remote environment.

In my experience setting expectations for the stand-up is critical. You should however also allow flexibility, respectfully asking team members for extra time if necessary when something important needs to be discussed and you are running out of time. At the end of each stand-up, what has been achieved must be clear to all members of the team. As long as people gain something from a meeting they will be more willing to attend and contribute as well.

I disagree with several of the points. The Standup Leader doesn't offer feedback; that's managing, not facilitation. Standup Leaders aren't managers. Nor do they make chit-chat or tell jokes; standup's not a social occasion. Standup's for the team itself it to share progress on its work, exchange information concisely & see how other's work impacts or affects their own. If a need for further exchanges arise they use sidebars or touchpoints after Standup & collaborate among themselves. Thus it's important that Standup be crisp, clean & concise to avoid wasting people's valuable time. The original Standup Leader will become a timekeeper & note-taker or even an observer as a self-organized team matures. Ty for the discussion!

I might have to disagree with you @Fortune, as whomever is running the standup should absolutely read the room and keep people engaged. If people just show up to show up, no feedback, no humor, no praise, nothing but monotonous updates......then teams will treat this meeting like many others they loathe to attend. They will treat it as not valuable, nor important, and provide the bare minimum of information (and not in a good way). Standups can, and should, absolutely be social while also achieving the common goal of the team - moving the project forward efficiently and effectively. They are not the place to resolve issues, brainstorm, etc. but absolutely need a social aspect to keep them highly productive, collaborative and valuable.

As a Scrum Master, foster an inclusive atmosphere where all team members feel comfortable sharing updates, asking questions, and providing feedback during remote stand-ups. Acknowledge that some may be hesitant to speak and strive to create a friendly and non-judgmental environment to encourage their participation.

As a Scrum Master, empower the team on SCRUM Values (Openness, Courage, Respect, Focus, Commitment). Embrace a collaborative setting where all members can openly request help on blockers and discuss to resolve it. Provide feedback for improvement. Encourage the team to raise alarms early if they feel sprint health is going south and take informed decisions later soon after standup by connecting 1:1 and share meeting minutes/action plan.

Engaging everyone in remote stand-ups is crucial for success. One helpful approach is using icebreakers to build rapport, like sharing a fun fact or asking a non-work-related question. However, I disagree with micromanaging attendance; trust your team. Once, a team member shared their recent camping trip during the icebreaker, which led to a lively discussion about the importance of disconnecting from work. This boosted team morale and made stand-ups more engaging.

Use the tool of 'walking the board' to focus your team on the right actions at the right time. This will create a team mentality that speed-to-close tickets is what allows the team to keep moving on other work. A coach once remarked to me "Stop starting and Start Finishing".

Limit your WIP.... period :) Too many tasks in the active queue will be harder to juggle and raises the risk horizon. Keep it short and sweet.

Again, I politely disagree. The Standup Leader doesn't assign work; that's management again. The Standup Leader's not a manager. The team self-organizes to pick up the work & distributes it among itself in flow. The team are the experts; they own the work, are accountable for the work & know or can collaborate to figure out how best to do it, not the Standup Leader. Nor should the Standup Leader rush to fix every problem or obstacle; the team needs a reasonable chance to try to solve its own issues.... to learn, grow, develop, & innovate. Only when there's truly an impasse on which the team asks for help should the Standup Leader enter that process. Ty for the discussion!

As a Scrum Master, I emphasize action-oriented discussions during remote stand-ups. Ensure the team focuses on current tasks, obstacles, and contributions to the sprint goal. Address blockers promptly by assigning owners and setting deadlines for resolution. This approach emphasizes the stand-up's purpose as a tool for alignment and obstacle removal rather than a mere status update.

Focus on action: In remote stand-ups, I emphasize actionable outcomes. One helpful strategy is encouraging team members to set clear daily goals, fostering accountability. However, I disagree with excessive detail; lengthy discussions can derail efficiency. Once, a team spent 20 minutes dissecting a small code change, losing sight of the bigger picture. Instead, I advocate for concise updates and addressing deeper issues separately.

I like to call these coordination meetings and ensure the team is aware this is the place to: 1. Share what they have done, not for a status update, but for those depending on the task. 2. Adjust their daily schedule. If they find out a teammate they were planning to work with in the afternoon now has another commitment, they can move that meeting and schedule something else in that time slot and ask if the team can adjust to support it. 3. Ask for help. This is the hardest to get independent developers to share that they need assistance with a task or to review their code. Think of creative ways to elicit the needed information keeping it fresh and fun.

Timeboxing stand-up calls to 15 minutes ensures focus and efficiency. Invite only those actively working on the tasks discussed. For more in-depth discussions, schedule dedicated calls to respect everyone's time during stand-ups.

Visual Aids - Using concise visual charts or boards to illustrate progress and blockers keeps stand-ups focused and efficient. Overly Detailed Updates - Avoiding long-winded status updates ensures brevity. Summarize, so discussions remain on track. Example: In a remote stand-up, a team member discussed a complex technical issue for 10 minutes, leading to confusion. Encouraging them to provide a brief summary with key points helped streamline the discussion, saving time and maintaining clarity.

Clearly define the agenda that this is just to understand the progress towards the sprint goal. Any discussion required to deep dive into any point can be taken care offline after the meeting. Deal with such situation in a requesting way so it may not impact the person who is trying to provide the valuable input. Keep the respect factor applied through out!

Here are some tips: - Stick to a consistent time for the stand-up meeting each day and ensure that it doesn't drag on for too long. Typically, stand-ups should last around 15 minutes to keep them focused and efficient. - Make sure everyone has a chance to speak and contribute. You can go around the virtual room, asking each team member to provide updates on their progress, any blockers they're facing, and what they plan to work on next.

After the 4th participant, actively listening to each member in sequence becomes exponentially harder. What if developers could use a short format video exchange?! A channel chatbot could facilitate submissions within a time window; and the team could hop on a live call to watch them all, and interact for a bit. Any short could be reviewed afterward!

Tailored Approach: Remote stand-ups aren't a one-size-fits-all solution. Experiment with different tools, formats, and techniques to find what works best for your specific team and project needs. Feedback and Retrospectives: Regularly solicit feedback from your team members through surveys or retrospectives. Use their input to identify areas for improvement and refine your stand-up approach. Metrics and Outcomes: Track metrics like meeting duration, participation level, and action item completion rates. Analyze how your stand-up format impacts project outcomes and make adjustments as needed.

Helpful: Incorporating a fun icebreaker before stand-ups fosters team camaraderie, making remote stand-ups more engaging. Disagree: Extensive use of screen sharing for every update can slow down stand-ups; brief verbal updates are often more efficient. Example: The team used a virtual "two truths and a lie" icebreaker to kickstart stand-ups, improving team bonding and enthusiasm during remote sessions.

Regularly solicit feedback from team members on how to improve the remote stand-up process. Experiment with different formats, such as rotating facilitators, using icebreaker questions, or incorporating visual aids, to keep the stand-ups engaging and effective. Continuously iterate on the remote stand-up process based on feedback and observations to optimize team communication and collaboration.

It's crucial to continuously experiment and improve when it comes to facilitating effective remote stand-ups. Each team and project is unique, so it's important not to assume that one approach will work for all. Seeking feedback from the team, conducting retrospectives or surveys, and trying out different tools, formats, and techniques are all essential steps in finding what works best for your team and context. Monitoring metrics and outcomes of the project will also help you understand the impact of the stand-up. It's an ongoing process of iteration and improvement to ensure that your remote stand-ups are as effective as possible.