[mindcrime]

To write a decent status update, I have to guess at all the reasonable questions and head most of them off. It is much more work

I think the assumption here is that there is a very limited set of basic questions that apply to everybody and that become the default. For example: "What did you work on yesterday?" "What are you working on today?" "Do you have any blockers or concerns?" If you just got everybody to submit those three questions and their answers, it would go a long way.

[wpietri]

Sure, and I am saying it takes a lot more work to write that up well than to have a conversation.

I guess it could be that people were answering those things in an entirely dull way. In which case, no wonder the meeting was seen as worthless. I'd suggest putting the boring information in a shared artifact. Personally, I tend to use as physical board. I also see virtual teams using a virtual board (like Trello) for that.

The value of the stand-up is in what people say that goes beyond the obvious.

[mindcrime]

The value of the stand-up is in what people say that goes beyond the obvious.

I agree. I just don't necessarily think that you need that level of interaction for a status meeting every day. OK, maybe some teams do.. and I can see why some people might prefer it. But my experience has been that it's overkill.

That said, different teams, different cultures, different situations, could definitely dictate different approaches.

My biggest gripe with the daily meetings is that they force a context switch that somehow seems to always come at the most awkward possible time, no matter when you schedule the meeting. Requiring lots of face-to-face meetings also runs counter to the idea of having distributed teams and a lot of "work remotely" flexibility, which I also tend to favor.

But, again, YMMV.

[wpietri]

Yeah, I could imagine contexts where not much is going on, or where the work is pretty routine, or where collaboration is low. In which case, no need to talk frequently.

I usually work in exploratory, high-volatility contexts, where there's plenty to talk about. I also favor continuous deployment; I think the last shop averaged about a release per engineer per day.

Given that very exploratory context, I also really like people generally being present. If that's the default, you can iterate much more quickly.

[mindcrime]

People can talking without having a daily, scheduled, standup meeting! If the only time people are talking is during the standup, I would consider that an anti-pattern. :-)

I'm certainly not advocating not communicating or collaborating, and frequently. Just saying that the daily standup isn't always required.

Given that very exploratory context, I also really like people generally being present. If that's the default, you can iterate much more quickly.

Fair enough.