The 15 minute daily standup, or daily scrum, is one of the more widely adopted artifacts of the iterative software movement. Even companies who only dip their toe into Agile practices typically adopt this since it seems so easy to do.

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. What is blocking progress?

While you can certainly take these questions and use them as the basis for your daily standup, you may be surprised at how your team actually responds to them. Some may find these questions laughable and not take them seriously. Some may become defensive, even if they have no reason to be. Some may clam up and provide almost no detail at all, while others ramble on about every minute of their day.

These issues can be addressed in 1-on-1 conversations and in retrospectives of course, however I wanted to provide a bit of insight into people focused and story focused facilitation techniques.

The people focused approach is generally where teams new to agile begin. This format is rather simple to remember since you basically go around the room and have each team member answer these three questions. At first the facilitator may ask each team member individually, or simply state these questions at the beginning. Either way the questions themselves become unspoken because let’s face it, no one wants to hear them asked repeatedly every morning.

If you find that the team becomes defensive or eventually grows tired of this format, then you may want to try a more story focused approach. Instead of going around the room asking the three questions, speak to the User Stories and Tasks on the wall. Start off by asking the team as a whole, Can someone update the team on where we are with this User Story? Chances are team members who have been working on the stories and tasks will chime in. Make sure they are speaking to everyone, and not communicating to you as if they are delivering a status report.

If you sense that impediments are unstated, ask questions like Anything else? or mention specific oddities in regards to a story or task. For example, if you notice a task estimate has increased or decreased greatly overnight, give the team a chance to address it before speaking up. When asking the question, do not carry an accusatory tone, but merely try to get an understanding of whether or not this adversely impacts your end of iteration commitment. The standup isn’t the time to perform an in-depth root cause analysis on the issue. Depending on its severity, you can have a separate discussion right after the standup with a smaller group or address it in the retrospective.

Remember, don’t be discouraged if your team is reluctant to embrace the daily standup with open arms right away. Keep an open mind, be patient, and feel free to switch up your facilitation techniques!