Amayzine

Forget scrumming, Standing (and short!) meetings are the way to go

May laughing at Amayzine magazine laughing outside

I always have to laugh a little at all those office terms that come up every few years. Silos up, silos down, agile, scrumming with scrum masters. The time you spend learning the idea, I would rather use to roll up my sleeves and move a few piles of work. But the latest office trend: standing meetings sounds to me like Billie Eilish in my ears.

Here are some meeting facts.

  • 47% of people find meetings a waste of time
  • 39 % of people have dozed off during a meeting
  • 91 % may not actually fall asleep but daydreams about that vacation in Tulum that you just booked
  • 73 % is doing other things, like secretly adding toilet paper to your AlbertHeijn.nl order because that ran out this morning

Voilà the reasons why I keep meetings to a minimum and do everything to avoid calling it that. We’re just going to ‘sit down’, but meeting, brrr.

Then here are the benefits of quick meetings in a row

  • Healthy, because you stand and standing is the new walking
  • Quick, because at some point you’re done with standing.
  • Healthy, because you stand
  • Quick, because you still need to throw toilet paper in your digital shopping cart from Albert Heijn and did I already mention that it’s healthy?

Finally, here’s how it works in an ideal world.

  •  You have your stand-up meeting every day, preferably at the start of the day.
  • It works best if you stand in the same place every day. There’s even an office furniture available with standing support pillars (for the much-needed support) around a high standing table. Ideal, also for the Friday afternoon drinks.
  • You check off the to do / doing / done list together
  • You park chit-chat and anecdotes until lunch
  • Issues that need to be discussed longer, you will discuss one-on-one later. The rest of the group doesn’t need to wait for that.
  • You keep track of time, maybe even physically in the form of an hourglass, then everyone knows how much time is left.
  • Because you meet every day, you can keep it short.
  • 15 minutes max.