{"id":3729,"date":"2019-04-16T19:47:35","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T02:47:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/knowyourteam.com\/blog\/?p=3729"},"modified":"2024-08-08T12:51:23","modified_gmt":"2024-08-08T19:51:23","slug":"daily-stand-up-meeting-weekly-staff-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canopy.is\/blog\/2019\/04\/16\/daily-stand-up-meeting-weekly-staff-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Daily stand-up meeting, weekly staff meeting\u00a0\u2013 or no meeting?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Best practices from 1,000+ managers on how to share progress with your team as a leader.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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It\u2019s 9:24 am on Monday during your weekly staff meeting or daily stand-up meeting<\/a>, and someone says: \u201cI had no idea we were working on that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWait, what? How is that possible?\u201d you think to yourself. Oh, it\u2019s more than possible. Not knowing what\u2019s being worked on in a team is, unfortunately, a problem more common than we\u2019d like to believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, when we asked 1,745 people across 702 companies through Canopy<\/a>, \u201cAre there things you don\u2019t know about the company that you feel you should know? 55% of people said, \u201cYes, there are things I don\u2019t know about the company that I feel like I should know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is disconcerting for a reason. Good work doesn\u2019t happen if folks don\u2019t know what\u2019s being worked on. While we intuitively seem to know this, it\u2019s fascinating to see the data that\u2019s been collected around this: A 2006 study<\/a> conducted by Abhishek Srivastava, Kathryn M. Bartol and Edwin A. Locke revealed that knowledge sharing in teams has led to enhanced performance. And, in our own survey we ran this past fall specifically on sharing information with 355 people, 70% of managers and employees believe sharing information strongly affects team performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, a 2008 study<\/a> run by Chuck Law and Eric Ngai demonstrated how, overall, \u201cknowledge sharing practices contribute to cost reduction, responsiveness to customer needs, product and service offerings, business process improvements, and growth of market share.\u201d And perhaps most stunningly, a 2015 Harvard Business Review article<\/a> estimated that \u201ccompanies in the Fortune 500 still lose a combined $31.5 billion per year from employees failing to share knowledge effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a result, the admittance of \u201cI had no idea we were working on that\u201d is rather ominous. You want to make sure your team knows what everyone is working on. Right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should you hold weekly staff meetings? Daily stand-up meetings? No meetings at all? Here\u2019s what we found most leaders tend to do when sharing progress with their team<\/a>\u00a0\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the survey we ran this past fall, we found that most teams seem to hold meetings as the primary way that they share progress (45%). However, other teams forgo a meeting altogether and just use a tool (29%), while others supplement the meeting with a tool or some sort of documentation, such as using an internal wiki or Google Docs (12%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the teams that do<\/em> hold meetings to share progress, most do it in the form of a weekly staff meeting (65%). Some teams might even be holding these meetings once a day, as a daily stand-up meeting\u200a\u2014\u200abut there caveats to consider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes or no to daily stand-up meetings?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In our community, managers from all over the world heavily debated the pros and cons of daily stand-up meetings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a summary of the different opinions exchanged, and what you should weigh if you\u2019re thinking about holding daily stand-up meetings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workflow\u2026or stoppage?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Daily stand-up meetings have the potential to break the workflow of employees. With the availability of tools, you often don\u2019t need a meeting every single day that\u2019s about sharing progress. If you are looking into holding daily stand-up meetings because your weekly staff meetings are taking too long, then perhaps that is symptomatic of a deeper issue: Your weekly staff meeting is too ambitious and has too many varied goals. Instead of resorting to daily stand-up meetings, potentially rethink the focus of your weekly staff meeting, and break out components into other meetings or other forms of communication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the \u201cwhy\u201d?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Meetings must have a purpose. Ask yourself (and your team!) honestly: \u201cWhat\u2019s the real need that this meeting is trying to meet?\u201d Is it about making team members aware of what is going on? Is it about the team being confused about what\u2019s happening in other areas of the team or the organization? Or is there a lack of understanding around the general team\u2019s focus areas? The answers to these questions will help you determine what format is best to share progress, be it a daily-stand-up meeting, weekly staff meeting, software tool, or another mode of documentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Process or decision-making?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Consider that there are two types of meetings: \u201cProcess meetings\u201d, which are meant to distribute information, and \u201cdecision-making meetings,\u201d which are meant to solve problems and address specific situations. A stand-up meeting is a \u201cprocess meeting\u201d where each team member shares what they are working on and what blockers they might have. It shouldn\u2019t take more than 10\u201315 minutes, even for larger groups. Any type of check-in\u200a<\/a>\u2014\u200abe it in-person or in-writing\u200a\u2014\u200ashould not be lengthy, and should be laser-focused on the intended and agreed purpose of the check-in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alternatives?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If an in-person daily stand-up meeting proves to interrupt your flow of work, there are other alternatives. You can use Zoom or Slack to hold a daily stand-up meeting remotely. Or, for more asynchronous updates, you can use tools such as Basecamp, Asana, or Trello (or in Canopy, we, in fact, have a \u201cHeartbeats\u201d feature that\u2019s very handy for this!<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After you\u2019ve settled on the general format that you\u2019d like to be sharing progress with your team, you\u2019ll want to decide on exactly what content<\/em> should be shared. From our online community, here are the most popular questions they pose to their team during weekly staff meetings and daily stand-up meetings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n