Alex Moore

Daily meetings are a micromanaging shitshow. Most people know these 15-minute stand-ups are useless. But they do them anyway because "that's how it should be." One day, the corporate world decided that Scrum answered every problem. Daily meetings became popular. Everyone. Every day. No exceptions. When did we become numb to how inefficient this is? How much time do companies waste every year in this charade? The funny part is that Scrum sells these by telling us they are a way to avoid other meetings. You gotta be kidding me! Unfortunately, I've participated in daily stand-ups for decades. If I were to compress these years into a single story, it would read like this: • We are still waiting for some. Where is he? We can't start unless we are all here. We are late already. • There's a manager in the meeting. We know she shouldn't be here. Who is going to tell her? • We take turns reading from a JIRA board shared on the big screen. Everyone can read, but we still do it out loud. She wants to hear us say it. • Yesterday wasn't a great day, but I won't admit it. Instead, let me tell her, "I'm making great progress" and "I'm getting closer than ever." • We are all talking to her. She said this is a "safe space." We trust her, of course. Now, she is questioning anyone who isn't moving fast enough. • 15 minutes in, and we are still here. Same as yesterday. The first time I led a team, I stopped daily stand-ups. One of the first principles of getting shit done is "maximizing uninterrupted time." Daily meetings are in direct conflict with that. Why should I force everyone to be at the same time and place while stopping everything else? I asked everyone to write instead. Some people wrote every day. Some people, whenever they had something to say. 10x improvement overnight. For the project and the team. I've talked to many people about this. Many tell me developers will never communicate unless you force them into a room daily. They say I shouldn't trust them to put in writing what they need to tell everyone else. They may be right. They need a better team.