Stand-Up Meeting

A stand-up meeting is a quick team gathering to make sure that the day is properly planned out. Topics generally include the current day’s goals and issues, previous day’s results, ongoing project status, and anything special on the agenda.

The stand-up meeting is part of a daily management program, and is intended to include teams in the decision making process. Because of the structured nature of this meeting, it is also a component of leader standard work.

These meetings should be done at the start of a shift and should only last a few minutes. Meetings should include the entire team. Some groups will also have a similar but more detailed leaders’ meeting once the day is under way.

Stand-up meetings should be short and should be for exchanging information only, not for working out problems. Fixing issues is important, but since the whole team is present at the stand-up meeting, nobody is producing anything. Schedule a specific time to work on the problem with only the necessary people in attendance.

Use an agenda for your stand-up meetings and follow the same format every day. Do the meetings in front of the production boards and metrics boards. If you don’t already have those tools, get them up before you start doing daily stand-up meetings. The boards are good focal points for the meeting, and lets you add some context to the discussion, if needed.

Some people question the logic of using this time for a meeting, since it is prime production time. There benefit of making sure the team is on the same sheet of music when the shift starts far outweighs the cost, though. Job satisfaction surveys frequently find that one of the top dissatisfiers to employees is a lack of communication, and dissatisfaction equates to a lack of productivity. A stand-up meeting is a simple tool that can correct that lack of communication.

Stand-Up Meeting Sample Agenda

1. Yesterday’s results and problems. 2 min
2. Today’s goals and unusual requirements. 3 min
3. Ongoing project status. 2 min
4. Meetings, current events, and corporate communication. 2 min
5. 1+minutes. Log the questions and answer the urgent ones. Include others in later stand up meetings when you get good answers.

Words of Warning

• Make sure you have an agenda for your stand-up meeting. It should be fast. Without a plan, they will run much longer.
• Have your ducks in a row before the meeting starts. That means having the numbers prepped and having updates to any ongoing projects.
• Don’t conduct one-on-one discussions in a stand-up meeting. Use it to identify the need for those sorts of conversations.
• Make sure there is a backdrop for the meeting. It is usually the daily management board or production board.
• Leaders should make sure they track issues and do something about the problems that are brought up. Teams quickly learn whether there is value for them in these meetings. If they just see lip service, they will stop participating.

If you are not already doing stand-up meetings in your area, roll out a pilot meeting in one of your work areas. It should be one with an upbeat, motivated team. They can help you get a feel for the process and come up with an agenda that works for your company. Once you get the hang of morning meetings, spread the process to the rest of the teams.

Stand-Up Meeting Warnings:

• Make sure you have an agenda for your stand-up meeting. It should be fast, and without a plan, they will run long.
• Have your ducks in a row before the meeting starts. That means having the numbers prepped and having updates to any ongoing projects.
• Don’t conduct one-on-one discussions in a stand-up meeting. Use it to identify the need for those sorts of conversations.
• Make sure there is a backdrop for the meeting. It is usually the daily management board or production board.
• Leaders should make sure they track issues and do something about the problems that are brought up. Teams quickly learn whether there is value to them in these meetings. If they just see lip service, they will stop participating.

If you are not already doing stand-up meetings in your area, roll out a pilot meeting in one of your work areas. It should be one with an upbeat, motivated team. They can help you get a feel for the process and come up with an agenda that works for your company. Once you get the hang of morning meetings, spread the process to the rest of the teams.