One my most challenging projects involved leading a team of scientists whose ability to make progress seemed inversely proportional to their IQs. At the beginning of the project, I dutifully planned weekly coordination meetings but soon found myself incredulous at our failure to reach deadlines.

After one particularly frustrating lack-of-progress review, I took a stress-reduction walk through the factory. As I strolled the shop floor, a production supervisor was holding a daily shift-change meeting. He and perhaps two dozen workers were crowded around a white board, energetically discussing the day's plan. In ten minutes, issues were settled, assignments were made, and the shift team was off to their work stations. Why couldn't I do the same with my team?

Why not us?

The next day I notified my eggheads that we would meet for ten minutes every morning. At each meeting I would ask members three simple questions:

• What have you accomplished since the previous meeting?

• What work are you planning to complete before the next meeting?

• And what do you need from your teammates or management to meet your objectives?

Each person had a minute to answer and I held them to that limit. When a member raised an important issue, I wrote it on a flip chart and discussed it at the end of the meeting rather than discussing it on the spot. Meetings promptly adjourned after ten minutes.

Results were spectacular. Questions were answered quickly, team members connected easily, priorities were always clear, and a sense of camaraderie emerged. After a few weeks of daily stand-up meetings, the project was finally on schedule and progress was made at a reasonable clip. The lesson is clear: Stand-up coordination meetings generate a driving drumbeat for project workflow.

But how can daily meetings work if weekly versions don't? Consider this question: When is most of the work presented in a weekly coordination meeting actually done? Answer: Usually the day (or even the hour) before the meeting. This observation is graphically apparent in Why short frequent meetings work. The upper left histogram represents the time focus team members put on project work relative to the number of days before the next meeting. As the meeting approaches, a sense of urgency among team members increases until everything else must be set aside to finish project work. After the meeting, urgency drops to zero and the cycle repeats the following week.

How would this behavior change if teams met daily? The upper right histogram suggests that with more frequent coordination comes increased focus. The team experiences a consistent sense of urgency regarding their project tasks.

Another benefit of frequent coordination is worth considering. Project coordination is like driving a car. Each time the team meets, the group can change the direction of workflow in response to information gathered since the previous meeting. Now imagine the steering on your car has a time delay. It takes a full minute for the car to react to a turn of the steering wheel. Driving on straight roads makes this a minor inconvenience. But once in the city, it would be impossible to avoid missing turns, and you would probably collide with the first obstacle.

The same behavior is true for project coordination, as illustrated in the bottom two graphs. If the frequency of coordination does not properly match the pace and urgency of development work, the real possibility is that between meetings, members go off in wrong directions. When project activity is hot, frequent coordination meetings let the team redirect resources, shuffle priorities, and try new solutions in response to rapidly changing events.

A few ground rules

Here are the fundamental ground rules that should be followed to ensure acceptance and success.

• First, let me be clear that at stand-up meetings, people actually stand up. No one gets comfortable. There are no doughnuts, no newspapers, just the team gathered around a flip-chart, or better yet, a project board summarizing status and actions. Meetings should start first thing in the morning because people are fresh and the workday is ahead of them. Just before lunch is also workable, particularly if members have flexible schedules.

• Meetings should start precisely at the agreed-upon time (lateness cannot be tolerated. It's pointless to show up ten minutes late to a ten-minute meeting).

• Although timing is important, the duration of the stand-up meeting determines whether it succeeds or fails. When first establishing stand-up coordination meetings, ask the team to agree upon ground rules, the most important of which should be to stick to a fixed duration. Fifteen minutes is the absolute limit, at least until the team is comfortable with the format.

• Meetings must end precisely at the agreed upon time. In fact, several firms using this tool gave kitchen timers to team leaders. The timer is set at the start of the meeting, and when the bell goes off, the meeting ends. Period. Some people may not be comfortable with this aggressive pace, but eventually everyone will appreciate the highly focused, rapid-fire communication it generates.

  While daily stand-up meetings make sense, a once-per-day frequency is no more “right” than once-per-week. Several in-company improvement teams hold monthly stand-up meetings to check the status of long-term initiatives and update action lists for the next month. A development team might meet once per week during slack periods, but meet three times a week as important milestones approach.

• Finally, although daily meetings may be warranted during project crunch times, once schedule pressures subside, the team can meet three times per week or less. The best way to ensure acceptance of stand-up meetings is to periodically ask your team whether the agenda, frequency, and duration can be improved.

Frequent stand-up coordination meetings yield several benefits. Some gains may seem nebulous, such as “creating a shared language” or “building team identity”. Keep in mind that although it is hard to quantify these effects, they are as important as any schedule milestone. A team that comes together as a committed unit can be more creative and productive than one that is a team in name only. Ultimately, the goal is to evolve a team culture within your firm that maintains a sense of urgency, encourages timely decision-making, and fosters empowerment.

Be creative with this tool. For instance, many one-hour and longer meetings you currently suffer through may be candidates for more frequent and shorter stand-up meetings. On the other hand, don't assume everything can be shoehorned into ten-minute meetings. Stand-up meetings get the job done in many situations, but there are times when bringing back the chairs and the doughnuts may make more sense.

This article is excerpted from The Lean Product Development Guidebook, by Ronald Mascitelli‥

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Stand-up meeting at work

It is interesting to consider just how far an organization can go in exploiting stand-up meetings. A satellite-communications firm, for instance, embraced daily get-togethers at all levels of management.

At 7:30 every morning, the CEO meets with the executive team for ten minutes. At 8:00, executives hold stand-up meetings with their direct reports. By 9:00, all departments and project teams are holding working-level meetings. This means the CEO can make a decision at 7:30 and have it communicated through the entire organization before coffee runs out in the break room.

A few benefits of short stand-up meetings

Creates a shared language among team members

Allows for real-time reallocation of resources

Encourages a focus on value-creating activities

Establishes a clear, prioritized work plan for each day

Provides a mechanism for cultural change

Builds team identity and emotional commitment