5 ways to wake up your standups
Don't let standups go stale. The Childcare Development Squad share 5 experiments that worked for us.
Standups can go stale
No one means it to happen, but with lots of things in flight in can be too easy to go through the motions.
- recapping on items from your todo list when thereâs nothing new to share
- spilling over 5-10 minutes
- leaving unsure of what to prioritise (or even what to do)
- missing sprint/weekly goals - or hitting them early and not setting a new one
- not really listening to the other updates as they usually donât impact you
We felt this creeping up on us.
In our squad standup we typically âwalk the boardâ, running through newly completed tasks, recapping whatâs in progress, then landing on whatâs next. If you donât do this, give it a whirl - itâs good for getting a team to think about shared responsibilities across a range of tickets rather than focussing on the individual.
However our standups were starting to feel dull - and non-engineer tasks were getting a bit lost in the realm of âup nextâ. Â Time to mix it up. Itâs worth remembering that variety in itself helps, so make sure to mix it up and find a balance that makes your squad tick.
Our top picks
đș Actually. Standing. Up
Obvious but true. The sentiment of making a meeting last no longer than youâre willing to stand is a good one - if youâre like me, your restless legs will tell you when youâve overrun.
Standing also gets the blood flowing just enough to make you feel a tiny bit more energised.
đĄ Prompts
Using a set of prompts (which we change each day) gets us to think about what weâre doing from new angles. Weâre tired of the classic âwhat I did, what I plan to do, any blockersâ routine, so went in search of fresh ideas.
These are some of our favourites, but we also found this blog a super helpful resource.
(Optional) It's important for others to know that...
(Optional) After standup/later I'll like to talk more about...
Today I'm going to...
(Optional) I'm going to help move something stuck on the board by...
(Optional) The thing that is slowing me down/blocking me is....
Today I'm going to help us get to our goal by ... I feel .... about our goal (Optional) I also wanted to share thatâŠ
Today I'm going to crush it by...
(Optional) Yesterday I changed the world by...
(Optional) I'm going to blast through any obstacles unfortunate enough to be standing in my way by...
Today Iâm going to finish off the week strong byâŠ
Something Iâm proud of is/Something I loved about this week isâŠ
(Optional) something I wanted to mentionâŠ
âïž Emotional checkin
This is us (cute, right?) giving a quick finger-vote on how weâre feeling today.

Sometimes we might comment to explain, or bring it up in a retro if weâre going through a low and we need to make a change, but mostly it takes a few seconds and gives us an instant read of the room. Makes me happy â
đ” Just a little alarming
Okay, this oneâs just me. Hereâs what happens: 9:27, finish whatever Iâve been up to, think âdo I have time for a cup of tea?â. Boil kettle. 9.31, scrabbling to load up zoom.
Being a few minutes late repeatedly is forcing my squad to hang around waiting for me. We should be starting on time, diving in on the dot.
My phone now peals with catchy jingles 2 minutes before, dragging me back to my screen just in time.
⥠Standup plannings
We keep a really tight planning cycle. Really tight. So sometimes after a particularly successful day, the âUp nextâ part of our board can empty out.
Enter the Standup Planning: A deep-dive into the next un-groomed ticket (or setting of a new goal), a brainstorm around the problems weâll need to solve. Finish up with a freshly-informed standup. âI know what Iâm doing today, because weâve got a plan, and itâs clear what I need to do right now to move it forward.â
Donât overthink it
While itâs always great to pool fun ideas in your squad, you donât need to spend hours debating or set anything in stone. Agree to some variety, then let your sweeper pick out whichever patterns they think might work for the week. Donât forget to call out the bits that worked well in your retro, itâll help the whole squad learn the patterns that fit you best.
Author
This post is written by Isabel Cooper, an engineer in the Childcare Development squad at Koru Kids.