#2782

Daily stand-up with the contractors

I talk to lots of people who’ve tried Agile (big ‘A’) and it hasn’t stuck but pretty much all of them will tell me the found value in daily stand-ups. If all I ever achieve is getting more people to spend a few minutes a day actually talking to each other about their work then I’m happy.

This week I have a contractor replacing the windows in my house. I didn’t realize until I started to describe it but every morning we do standup, only this time I get to play the customer. They arrive at 9am and we go through what got worked on yesterday and what’s going on today, I inspect yesterday’s work and ask questions about stuff. They tell me what they have planned today and I make sure that I haven’t left junk in their way.

I’ve actually seen the catering team that run the cafeterias here at Microsoft doing daily stand-ups too; reviewing menus and what’s going on in the cafeteria that day.

The power of stand-up meetings!