[Nursie]

You get a quick status update of all the bits everyone is working on.

  Oh, Bob finished the xyz bit? Great I'll get started on abc now.
  Jim's stuck with the autobuzzulator? I've used those before, I'll jump in and give him a hand after the standup.
  Katie's not been able to deliver the turnip functionality? Still can't test the beets either then...

It should take no more than a few seconds per person and I find it far more effective than any agile status tool I've used, be that a physical board or an online system.

>> I only find them helpful if some people in the team generally don't communicate well what they're up to (e.g. during daily work, over lunch).

I communicate well with people I'm working with in the microcosm of what I'm doing right now, but there may be a few other people on the team doing related tasks that I'm not talking to every day.

And lunchtime is my time to get a few minutes away from screens and work, take a walk, have some food etc.

[slavik81]

If you were waiting on Bob to finish xyz, why does he wait up to a day before telling you he's done?

After doing scrum for a few years, my impression is that stand-ups are useless because you can't depend on them. They're frequently too far away to be used for the purposes you're talking about, so you always need an alternative. If that alternative is good, you might as well always use it and cancel the meeting.

[Nursie]

I'm not sure I was waiting for bob, I probably have other tasks too.

I don't know of a better alternative that maintains the face to face element.

[Udik]

The point is: are you really interested in what those people are working on? If you are, then you should communicate with them much more often than once every 24 hours, or have decent conversations with them. A few seconds aren't enough anyway. If you're not, then scrum is a frustrating waste of time.

Also, if the company has more than a few devs, scrum meetings are usually limited to your team. And you should already know what your team members are working on - if you don't, then your team has serious communication issues, scrum or not scrum.

[Nursie]

>> The point is: are you really interested in what those people are working on? If you are, then you should communicate with them much more often than once every 24 hours

I don't believe this is true. I can be interested but not directly involved all the time.

>> And you should already know what your team members are working on

This is exactly what the standup is for.

[mpdehaan2]

I prefer ditching standups in favor of constant communication, people should know who they need to talk to and avoid waiting for specific checkpoints.

A not-too-long team meeting once or twice a week to talk about big themes is pretty reasonable, but usually I can't even remember what is said in a standup, because much of it isn't things I need to remember.

If it's forced short, there's usually not enough data, if it's it's too long, everything gets tuned out. It's really another kind of status meeting, and I think meetings should instead produce actionable items.

[Nursie]

As I said to the other response like this, I dislike team meetings as without strong leadership (something I have found lacking in a lot of places) it usually degenerates into an hour or more of griping and grandstanding.

You don't really need to remember exactly what's said in a standup, IMHO, participate in it and offer your skills or resources to help other people who are stuck, and get an idea of what's going on.

[mpdehaan2]

Yeah, those could be bad. I've always seen it done with strong team leads or technical managers when they existed instead of standups. I have seen that devolve though, and I know what you mean.

I was very hands on when running meetings when I did it that way. Usually had an agenda, broke when we didn't have anything else to do, and kept on topic.

[seanwilson]

> It should take no more than a few seconds per person and I find it far more effective than any agile status tool I've used, be that a physical board or an online system.

Isn't that information already on your planning board? Likewise, it should only take a minute to review the planning board updates each day and you should be getting direct notifications for things you're suppose to be helping on.

I can see the value in you all getting together to have a high-level chat on how things are going maybe once a week but every single day is way too much for me.

[Nursie]

Personally I hate weekly meetings as, unless you have strong leadership (rare) they turn into long, boring gripe-fests.