How to run a daily standup in 15 minutes or less

To run a daily standup, meet at the same time each working day and stop at 15 minutes. Say the team's goal, take blockers first, then check today's plans against the goal. Move any discussion longer than a minute to a follow-up after the meeting, with the two or three people it concerns.

The 15-minute limit and the fixed time come from the Scrum Guide. The one-minute rule is from our own template, and the minute counts further down are ours too.

What the Scrum Guide sets, and what it leaves open

A standup in Scrum is the Daily Scrum, and the Scrum Guide sets very little. It's "a 15-minute event for the Developers", held "at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint". Its purpose is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adjust the plan. The Developers "can select whatever structure and techniques they want", as long as the meeting produces "an actionable plan for the next day of work".

The three familiar questions aren't in the current guide at all. They appear in Jason Yip's long article on standup patterns on Martin Fowler's site, as "What did I accomplish yesterday?", "What will I do today?" and "What obstacles are impeding my progress?". Our standup template uses them as its columns because they're quick to fill in. They're a format you can change.

If your team doesn't use Scrum, none of this binds you. You still need the short limit and the plan at the end.

A made-up Tuesday

Everything here is invented. The team of four, their work and the goal we give them, "search filters live by Friday", don't exist. Here are the Today and Blockers notes from our sample board. It has a Yesterday column as well, but this example doesn't need it.

Going round the room, this sounds fine. Mia has no blocker, Aylin has no blocker, and two people have one each. Now read the columns against each other.

Tom's blocker is also Mia's. She plans to pair with him on search filters, and he can't ship them without the keys. Her row shows no blocker, but she has one too.

Jonas's blocker sits on his plan for today. He's handing over on-call today, and the tool for that keeps logging him out. The person taking over needs to know before the handover starts.

Only one of these touches the goal. Search filters by Friday depends on the keys. The pager problem matters, but it's a separate job, so it shouldn't take up the same time.

So the plan changes in the room. Tom and Mia stay on after the meeting to chase the keys, and Mia reviews the search code until they arrive. Jonas and the next person on call take the pager problem to a follow-up of their own. Aylin's plan stands.

Here's how we'd split the time, which is our own plan and not from either source.

That adds up to eight minutes, inside the 15-minute limit. Mia and Tom's follow-up happens afterwards and doesn't count toward it.

Why blockers go first

Yip's article notes a suggestion from Olve Maudal to reverse the questions and ask about obstacles first. It also describes a pattern called Walk the Board, where the team discusses work items and not people, starting with the item nearest to done. It quotes Pawel Brodzinski's default order, which starts with blockers. The reason it gives comes from Dave Nicolette, whom it quotes: going person by person means "each subject comes up briefly depending on the order in which team members speak". That's what happened to Mia and Tom in our example.

Our template is arranged by person, so you can use it in either order. Teams with a kanban board can stand in front of that and skip the rows altogether. Yip says a person-by-person structure suits teams without a board.

Four standup problems

Problem solving in the meeting. Yip's pattern is Take it Offline, meaning a stock phrase anybody may use to move a discussion out of the standup. Agree on the words beforehand so nobody feels told off. Then write the name of the follow-up on the board so the topic doesn't disappear.

Everyone reporting to one person. Yip calls this Reporting to the Leader and says it means the meeting is for the manager when "it is actually supposed to be for the team". His Rotate the Facilitator pattern passes the job of running the meeting around the team.

Latecomers. One of Yip's options is Last Arrival Speaks First, which rewards being on time. He also warns that the last to arrive may be the least prepared. Keep the same time and place either way.

Relying on standing up. People stand so that discomfort reminds them when a meeting runs long. Yip says this "does not guarantee" a short meeting. A visible timer is a more direct way to enforce the limit, and it works on a video call too.

Frequently asked questions

Does a daily standup have to be in the morning?

No. The Scrum Guide says same time and place, and doesn't name a time. Yip's article gives one pattern for using the standup to start the day and another for holding it later, with the cost of each.

Who should attend?

In Scrum, the Developers. The guide says a Product Owner or Scrum Master takes part as a Developer if they're working on items in the Sprint Backlog. Outside Scrum, invite the people doing the work that the plan depends on.

Can a remote team post updates instead of meeting?

Yes, and our template suits it, because people fill in their rows ahead of time. You lose the moment when someone notices that two rows conflict, so give one person the job of reading across the rows each day and calling out what they find.

What if nobody has a blocker?

Finish early, after checking that the plans still lead to the goal. The limit is a maximum.

Set up tomorrow's standup

Open the daily standup template, put your team's names in the rows and write your goal above the board. Ask for notes five minutes before the start. If you work in sprints, the goal comes from sprint planning.