[Consultant32452]

My current employer's standup is now an hour long. There's only 6 developers on the team.

Technically we have two standups. A thirty minute "tech only" standup and then another thirty minutes that includes the rest of the stakeholders.

[balefrost]

This is almost certainly due to poor facilitation. That is to say, whoever is facilitating this meeting is either afraid to push back or else thinks that this is how it should be.

Convince the 6 developers that they don't need more than 30s each during the "tech only" standup. Get the facilitator to aggressively chop long discussions (clarifying questions can be fine; discussions and debates are not). At least, move long discussions to the end of the standup so that people who aren't relevant and who don't care can leave.

Initially, my team's standups (I think 4 devs at the time) would be 15-20 minutes; we're now (6 devs) down to 10-15 minutes, probably 10s more than 15s.

I can't imagine there being much value from a daily, 30-minute, whole-team meeting with multiple stakeholders. Developers should perhaps talk to specific stakeholders... but those conversations should be focused on specific stories and probably should be done in much smaller groups. Heck, it would be fine to have 30 minutes of scheduled "office hours" time where specific developers can talk to specific stakeholders about specific stories.

Bring this up in retrospective. Point out that (nominally) 12.5% of every day (and likely more than that) is being spent on these meetings. Ask about what value people see in these long meetings and if there's a better way to achieve that value. Brainstorm other approaches and get the team to commit to experimentation.

Try, you know, actually standing up. On your feet. That's where the name comes from and it's to encourage people to be brief.

[ethbr0]

The central evil is letting anyone control the standup that isn't directly participating in the work output of the team.

Because then it's easy for that person to forget that stand-ups have no independent value -- their only value is in making the other work go faster. And should be calibrated to maximize that.

Which is why you get the "We standup because we have to standup" shops.

[blacktriangle]

I knew one company where the standups were getting so bad, the managers solution was to have everybody in a plank position for the meeting. Meeting time got short real fast.

[Symbiote]

Next up: forming an actual rugby scrum, from where the scrum methodology gets its name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(rugby)

[commandlinefan]

> This is almost certainly due to poor facilitation

Yep. I've suffered 20 years of poor facilitation. I keep hoping for some facilitation.

[Consultant32452]

Facilitator is the PM, person who thinks it should be this long is the client. Client always wins.

[sumtechguy]

Dont go. Seriously. When they ask why just say 'I do not contribute and am in the way there'. One place I worked it took them 4 months to realize I was not in the 1-2 hour meeting every other day. It took them another year to realize most of the people on that call should not be there. The managers are confusing their status meetings with yours and now they are one in the same. That is why they are long and disorganized.

[runawaybottle]

I knew a particular self-important PM that had follow up point-poker meetings that easily went into the three hour range. She was very useless, but it was almost like going to her own little tea-party with her little dolls that she fed fake tea.

Apologies for the gender connotations, but I have no better analogy. It was a little girl playing with her little dolls.

[polishdude20]

Oh man I feel for you. At the startup I'm currently at, it's all remote and we have daily stand-ups that are only 15 mins but usually they finish in 2. Not sure if it's useful or not since you could probably express the same info in a message but it's nice to see people I suppose.