🤖 ➡️ 😄 Humanize your standups
In the age of remote work (which I love, but I know has trade-offs), standups can be boring 🥱.
People are sitting down (not a stand-up anymore, is it?), and it feels like roll call. When it’s your turn, you just shout what you did yesterday.
That is helpful to some in the team (like PMs), but it can also be done asynchronously. Which is why, I think, many teams switch to async standups.
But in a remote world, we’ve lost the coffee machine chats, the “how was your weekend?” moments, the ping-pong lunch game. We’ve lost some of that connection.
I think standups can give us some of that back.
Yes, let’s talk about the work. And while we’re there, let’s focus less on rote updates and more on blockers and helps – things that lead to collaboration.
But let’s also humanize ourselves a little. We’re not just 4x4 squares in a rectangular flatland.
I like to add levity when I lead standups. I try to be more light-hearted, self-deprecating, and shout-out non-work things I’ve learned about others (“Did you know James wrote a book?!”)
I also like to add quirky elements (like filters and lasers) that help people loosen up:
Typically, teams like it, and they adopt it.
One time, a teammate running standup acted like a news anchor. They called to site correspondents, asking for weather reports and updates from “the field”. The entire team went along with it. It was hilarious.
To be clear, I’m not advocating you turn your standup into a 40 minute slog fest. Keep standups short but add some sweetness too. Doing small things to add friendliness reminds us that we’re human, in this “thing” together, and creates camaraderie.