What Is The Point Of Daily Standups?
What is a daily standup?
A daily standup is a short team meeting held at the start of each day, generally lasting no more than 10-15 minutes. During this short meeting, each team member quickly answers the following three questions:
What did you accomplish yesterday?
What will you accomplish today?
What’s preventing you from accomplishing your goals (or making it harder)?
This format comes directly from the agile methodology known as Scrum marketing, which is based don’t the idea that teams are most effective when working on a series of short, concentrated work sessions. In Scrum marketing, these sessions are known as sprints, generally lasting anywhere between 5-21 days with key tasks assigned to each day.
Other agile marketing methodologies that also use adapted versions of the daily standup meetings but the format may vary slightly from the Scrum methodology.
Daily standups in agile marketing
Daily standups originate from the Scrum agile methodology, which was first created by software developments teams during the 1980s and, later, adapted by marketers for the modern, complex demands of digital marketing.
The purpose of agile marketing is to make teams more productive so they can achieve ambitious goals in shorter time frames. Another key aim is to develop marketing processes that make your team more responsive (ie: agile) when it comes to responding to changes or disruptions – eg: fixing an underperforming campaign or reacting to new demands from your target audience.
Results of Agile
Get to market faster.
93% said adopting Agile helped them to improve speed to market (ideas, products or campaigns),
Adapt and respond faster.
93% said adopting agile helped them switch gears more quickly and effectively.
Be more productive.
87% said adopting Agile made their teams more productive.
Identify and prioritize high-impact activities.
80% said adopting Agile lead to an enhanced prioritization of the things that matter.
Deliver Customer-centric outcomes.
80% said adopting Agile helped them deliver a better, more relevant end-product. (source: CMG)
The daily standup plays a key role in agile marketing, especially the Scrum methodology, by keeping teams motivated and focused on their goals – both collectively and individually.
Given the short time frame and day-to-day structure of sprint runs in the Scrum methodology, marketing teams can’t afford distractions. They also can’t have preventable issues slowing down progress when they need to sign off another key stage of the sprint by the end of the day and achieve their sprint goals within a matter of days or weeks.
Daily standups allow project managers to hear team members discuss their progress, next objective and any issues that could prevent them from taking the next key step. They also help team members themselves clarify their intentions at the start of each day and hit the ground running.
The benefits of daily standups
Here’s a quick preview of the key benefits:
Clarify sprint goals: Each daily standup gives you the chance to clarify the sprint goal once again.
Clarify daily goals: Ensure everyone is aware of the day’s goal before they get to work.
Motivation: Motivate your team at the start of the day so they’re ready to make a fast impact.
Encourage achievements: By discussing individual achievements, you motivate team members to keep hitting targets every day.
Promote accountability: An equal emphasis on success and failure promotes a healthy culture of accountability.
Raise issues: Raise challenges and overcome them as a team.
The primary aim of daily standups is to keep team members focused and motivated for the day ahead, every day of the week. However, they’re also a powerful tool for addressing issues in your marketing processes and strengthening team dynamics in a meaningful way.
How to run a daily standup
Now that we’ve explained the benefits of daily standups, in this section, we cover the key steps you need to follow for planning and running effective standups every day.
Here are the steps:
Standup agenda: Create your meeting agenda so everyone knows what’s expected from them.
Start the day with a standup: Hold your daily standups at the beginning of each day to maximise impact.
Stand up: Get your team on their feet to energise the conversation (only for in-person meetings).
Go round the circle: Get everyone to speak by moving around the circle as it naturally forms.
Stick to the agenda: Ensure the meeting covers everything in the agenda (and nothing else) in 10-15 minutes.
Follow-up issues: Tag issues that can’t be addressed in the meeting for further attention outside of the standup.
Take notes: Take notes for every standup so you have a written account of the points raised.
Those are the key steps to follow for effective daily standups and, once you run through a few of these, you’ll wish every marketing meetings was this easy to manage.
