Projects and operations
Template: notes from a daily standup
A short note template for the daily standup, built for fifteen minutes. Blockers first, not a round where everyone recounts what they did yesterday.
STANDUP [team], [date]
BLOCKERS
- [What is stuck]: [name] resolves it, [when]
TODAY
[Name]: [the most important thing, one line]
[Name]: [...]
TAKEN AFTER THE MEETING
- [Matter]: [name] and [name]
Not present: [name]How to use it
- Blockers first. That is the only part of a standup that has to happen synchronously. Everything else can be written.
- One line per person. If two are needed, the matter belongs in “taken after the meeting”.
- Write “taken after the meeting” as you go. The moment two people start a discussion, it is noted here and the meeting moves on. That single move keeps the standup at fifteen minutes.
- Do not write what people did yesterday. That is history, and nobody acts on it.
When the standup has lost its function
If the notes have no blockers for a week running, and “today” reads as a report to the manager, the meeting has become a status round. Then a written update is better for everyone. See the status meeting template if you would rather formalise it as a weekly meeting.
Frequently asked questions
Not full minutes. But blockers and who is going to resolve them are worth writing down, otherwise they repeat day after day without anyone taking hold of them.
Fifteen minutes for a team of five to nine. If it runs longer, it is usually because the discussions happen in the meeting instead of afterwards with the two people actually affected.
That it becomes a report to the manager instead of coordination between team members. The symptom is that everyone speaks towards one person instead of to each other.