What is a stand-up meeting?
A stand-up meeting, also known as a daily scrum meeting, is one of the most efficient meetings of all types. As the name suggests, a stand-up meeting commonly requires every attendee to gather together in a standing position to discuss their daily workflow or project process in a quick way, which generally takes 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the number of participants. Nevertheless, as remote working trends take up the main lane, the forms of stand-up meetings are becoming diverse to fit in the new working model. But the quintessence of stand-up meetings remains, that is efficiency.
One of the most obvious differences between a stand-up meeting and a common conference room meeting lies in the spent time. A daily stand-up meeting, as said above, usually takes up less than 15 minutes, while a common conference room meeting takes up more than 30 minutes, let alone those exhausting meetings with low productivity that run for hours. The other is the meeting form, though now that teammates who work remotely are not in the vicinity, for on-site employees, team members often hold stand-up meetings traditionally to keep it as short and efficient as possible.
What to discuss in a stand-up meeting?
The main purpose of a daily stand-up meeting is to synchronize work or project information of the last 24 hours for better collaboration. Thus, the keynote of a stand-up meeting often concentrates on the following three subjects:
1. What did you accomplish yesterday?
2. What will you work on today?
3. Are there any obstacles or need any assistance?
The whole meeting should be around these subjects strictly to make it quick. According to specific teams, participants can speak based on the project process or take turns speaking.
What are the advantages of stand-up meetings?
1. Transparent workload and project process
One of the headaches of planning as a whole is knowing your teammates' workload and their current project process because it is impractical to ask them privately one by one, which is time-consuming and unproductive. Clearly stating each one's accomplishments and his/her working plan helps a lot to synchronize information and for managers, to make arrangements for the next stage.
For remote workers whose communication with colleagues may not be as convenient and efficient as those who work in the office, attending stand-up meetings every day is the most effective way to integrate into the team and get work done with higher efficiency.
2. Help address troubles
For those who are dragged behind by problems that can not be addressed on their own or do not have time to address, stand-up meetings are the perfect time to ask for assistance. Never hide away your troubles you can not solve because what exists won't be figured out themselves and they might affect others to some extent. Therefore, feel free to ask for help if necessary because it is what stand-up meetings are all about.
3. Facilitate collaboration
Seamless collaboration in a team is conducive to yielding well-pleasing results. If everyone simply buries themselves into work without enough communication and collaboration with teammates, it brings only fragments but teamwork. Running a stand-up meeting daily facilitates teammates' collaboration in a quick and efficient way but also strengthens team cohesiveness. For remote working teammates, it is the best time to know what their office-based teammates are up to so as to better work with each other.
4. Reduce unnecessary meetings and save time
Since stand-up meetings merely take up several minutes per day, compared to those long-running meetings where you'll probably gain nothing valuable but have to attend, stand-up meetings behave a lot more humanely, reducing unnecessary meetings and saving time.
How to run an effective stand-up meeting?
1. Run it at a fixed place and time
Find a place and time that is suitable for your team and keep your daily stand-up meetings there. Make it a routine and a part of the working day. It is suggested to run a stand-up meeting in the morning so as to better arrange the work on that day later. But if you have remote teammates who live in different time zones, perhaps you need to make further considerations to make sure everyone is available when the time comes.
2. Have clear meeting leadership
By nature, a stand-up meeting seems informal, but it still needs a clear leader to chair the meeting. It could be the team manager, an assistant, or someone else. The key is that the person who is in charge of the meeting should be known by all attendees and lead the meeting process to make it as efficient as it should be.
3. Include everyone
Nowadays, employees are no longer defined in the office to get their work done. With more remote workers working from home or anywhere else, it is important to include them in daily stand-up meetings to let them feel they're part of the team. Therefore, in order to better connect with your remote teammates, you're likely to need some professional tools.
The EMEET OfficeCore M3 is a plug-and-play USB/Bluetooth speakerphone that is equipped with 4 sensitive omni-directional microphones for 360° voice pickup, ensuring your remote teammate hears every attendee clearly. Its portable design makes it fit in every meeting place of your team.
4. Strictly focus on the meeting keynote
The keynote of your stand-up meetings may differ according to your team. The most commonly applied one is the one that is said above, which includes accomplishments, plans, and obstacles or assistance. Once the keynote is settled, focus on that to make your stand-up meetings more productive and not be interrupted by unrelated stuff.
5. Make it as short as possible
The original intention of holding stand-up meetings was to quickly communicate team issues in a standing position. Therefore, keeping it as short as possible matters a lot. Surely, if you have remote teammates in your team, then it is better to have the right tools to make it more convenient for everyone.
The EMEET Meeting Capsule is a plug-and-play conference camera featuring AI active speaker tracking that focuses on specific speakers and makes remote teammates feel as if they're nearby other teammates. It only takes up seconds to set up, taking up as less time as possible to keep the meeting quick enough.
Conclusion
It's not for nothing that stand-up meetings have been utilized by most teams for such a long time. Teams need frequent and efficient communication and collaboration to meet their goals and stand-up meetings are one of the most effective ways to help boost satisfying output.
