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May 04, 2005
Standup Patterns
A blog I was reading the other day about dysfunctional standups reminded me of a pattern we'd adopted a couple of projects back:
Name: Pair Report
Motivation We were pairing 100% on this project, rotating pairs roughly every day or so. Because of the nature of pairing, often the first person of a pair who spoke at standup normally covered most, if not all, of the news from the pair, leaving the second person to comments such as "pass", "what he/she said" or "nothing to add". When the pair was geographically split within the standup circle, this forced a context switch of the listeners to remember what the second comment was in reference to
Implementation: Simply, each pair stands together in the standup circle, so related comments come immediately after the originating comment. The result is a more logical, cohesive report from the pair.
Variations: This pattern relies on a relatively low pair rotation. If you have pairs rotating several times throughout the day, this pattern can lead to mad dynamic clusters forming throughout the standup as people swap to stand beside their various partners. We lived with this normally as it didn't cause undue turmoil.
Posted by Andy Marks at May 4, 2005 10:55 AM
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