6.1. Daily Meetings
Last updated
Last updated
Dailies or Daily Stand-Ups are—as their name suggests—meetings that the team holds every day. They’re intended to be very short, usually 15 minutes, for that reason it is common that the participants hold this meeting standing up.
The Daily serves a specific purpose: it is an opportunity for the team to check if they are on the right track towards their Goals and to identify where collaboration is needed. The idea is to identify problems (not solve them!). By jointly identifying the issues and by then briefly discussing who will address what or who might make a connection that might be able to help, the Dailies help ensuring the right people are collaborating throughout the day. Any impediments that arise are made transparent, so the right people can be brought together to deal with it. Fundamentally, it is an opportunity to inspect and adapt at the most basic, operational level.
The typical three questions asked in each Daily are:
What have I accomplished since the last Daily?
What am I going to do until the next Daily?
What do I need to achieve my goals?
Within the law firm or within your team, it makes sense to have a short daily meeting to check in with everyone. Even if these meetings within a team aren’t held each day, asking the typical questions of a daily can be a very useful tool in each meeting setting.
It is important to note that a Daily can quickly turn into a status report meeting—which is not the intention. It is crucial to have the team be in control, and not some manager/partner to avoid micromanagement. Everybody who participates in a Daily does so in the role of a team member, contributing to the work of the team.
The frequency might indeed need some adaptation to your needs. We suggest starting with a daily meeting and reduce the number of meetings if necessary.
While everybody should aim at being available, if possible, there is no strict duty to attend. If a team member in a court hearing, on leave, or similar, the other team members meet. As this is not a status report meeting, the approach works even if not everybody is available every day. The team should, however, keep the overall attendance rate high to avoid devaluation of the Daily.
Think about the right setting for your Agile meetings. Include room and tools into your considerations. A few practical insights from experience:
The room should be suited for a quick get-together rather than being a room to meet comfortably for longer times. People should feel comfortable but should not be invited to drag out the length of the meeting.
Sometimes it can be useful to have the Kanban board or another visualisation tool at hand but note not to reiterate any status in the Dailies. Focus on the three questions presented.
Depending on the team setting, a remote or hybrid setting may be required. If you go hybrid, take care that the team members who are not on site feel equally integrated, especially in cases in which certain team members always work remotely.
As a small team, they do not to have very clear habits regarding their work organisation. They take pride in flexibility, so they worked and met as they deemed fit for their current needs. It worked well for them up to now, both in their own team as well as in interaction with other teams and practice groups in the firm Lawyering & Co.
Alice and her team wonder whether they can bring their setup to the next level. In their Agile books, they read that a formalized organisational setup can help with outcomes. Would a structured setting even help creative work? Our team is willing to run a little experiment and learn whether it does or not.
They know that typical Agile setups feature several meetings, but they decide to first implement one of them and then, when they have had a few days to get accustomed to it, see how to do with the rest. They chose to start with Dailies. Instead of just spontaneously meeting, they would come together at a pre-defined time to exchange the key information. Clearly that does not keep them from getting in touch in-between, but it would channel the energies so every one of them would have fewer distractions. They discuss the best timing, which was not easy given they had court hearings, and agree to start with a brief exchange in the morning, at 8:45, which is usually before the hearings. They will hold this meeting in front of their Kanban board so they can refer to it if needed. If somebody would be unavailable due to appointments, they decide to implement an option to participate remotely, but take a note to ask some experienced person whether that made sense from a methodological perspective.
Knowing that practice makes mastery, they agree that every single one of them would seek to remind the team if they deviated from the very narrow three topics determined to be discussed. To facilitate that, Fiona suggests writing down the three questions and that one of them would take notes during the meeting.
Gabriel—as Scrum Master—is tasked with moderating the Daily, leading the team through the questions. They decide to go through it question by question to have the topics grouped. For the accomplishments, Alice notes that she was finally able to finish implementation of a real estate litigation she led for an overseas client, so she doesn’t have an update for our case at hand. The others do not have any big updates but are progressing happily, Item by Item. Briefly touching the question of what was planned for the day, Fiona and Gabriel plan to finalise the overview of all parties and complete the list of relevant people for detailed information. Oliver is primarily busy on other cases at the current time and expects the same for the following day. Alice adds that she will work on the ongoing cases for existing clients. When Gabriel invites everyone to share what they’d need from the team, Oliver reminds them to confirm the setting for the planned meeting with Caleb and his team and Fiona says that she would like to have Alice’s opinion on the status on some Items so that she can declare them as done. They briefly check that the Kanban board is up-to-date and move one forgotten card along to reflect its status. It passes very quickly and as they finish their first Daily at 8:57, three minutes early, they are eager to start the day’s work because they feel that their progress is more visible with their new Kanban board.
Participants
Alice, Fiona, Gabriel, Oliver
Frequency/ Duration
Daily, 8.45 AM, max 15 minutes
What have I done since yesterday?
Alice: worked on other cases
Fiona: Made a first draft based on Gabriel’s list
Gabriel: Wrote first draft of relevant people and gave it to Fiona
Oliver: working on other cases
What will I do today?
Alice: Still working on other cases
Fiona: Finish the overview of parties
Gabriel: Complete the list of relevant people
Oliver: Still working on other cases
What is in my way?
Alice: Other cases
Fiona: Needs input from Alice
Gabriel:
Oliver: Confirm meeting setting
Updating the Kanban Board
Done.
Participants
Frequency/ Duration
What have I done since yesterday?
What will I do today?
What is in my way?
Updating the Kanban Board
