Personally, the value of standup became clear to me when a team I was working on stopped doing a full-team standup for a month or two. We ended up with a scary branch merge because people on different sub-teams were doing extensive refactoring in the same code area.

We recently polled our team for their understanding of why we do standup; the results are below.

Does your full team do standup? Do some people feel its a waste of time that would be better spent coding?

• Ensures everyone on the team knows what everyone is working on (helps prevent conflicting implementations). Highlights impediments.

• Informs the team as to what everyone did recently.

• Team learns what was done yesterday and today and is informed of any current impediments. Ensures that the team is on the same page / facilitates communication.

• Team members give a quick rundown of yesterday/today and what the current impediments are.

• Ensures that everyone knows what everyone is doing that could impact the team. Includes info on yesterday and today.

• Indicates what is going on with the project, detect issues to be resolved. Soft deadline for being present at the office.

• Ensures that the team knows what everyone is working on. Prevents crossed-wires. Allows team members to add input.

• Keeps the team up to speed on what’s done, and any current issues.

• Keeps everyone up-to-date on the entire team’s work.

• Facilitates team communication. Allows developers to communicate impediments.