Recently, one of my friends asked me a question:
"What will you do if your's daily stand-up starts at 9:30 and one of your teammates, who went half hour ago to the shop and should already back, is still absent?"
I told him that answer is simple - I will call him and ask how long it will take for him to get back to us. If it won't be long, we will wait for him.
"Define what means "long"."
I told him, that something around 5 minute.
"Great, so meanwhile another teammate went make a call, because he still got 5 minutes. Unfortunately it turns around, that after this 5 minutes he is still making this call. But he tells you that it will take no more than three more minutes. Three is less then five. What will you do?"
Now everything was clear for me and what answer could be? Next time we won't wait for anyone, we'll just start the meeting.
We need to be consequent and any kind of exception can be beginning of exceptions chain reaction. Because if all of us in team are equals and if there would be exception for one person, why not we shouldn't do the same for me next time?
That kind of situation? Nothing special in my company :) If someone cannot be on stand-up or will be shortly after planned end simply send sms or call telling what he was doing yesterday and is planning to do today. This is stand-up, not meeting where are taken decisions about future of a project or on similiar level. We are IT :) We have other channels of communication than only direct contact :)
OdpowiedzUsuńYeah, right, but the problem was about waiting not about communication.
UsuńAnd to be honest, I think that we should follow this rule as often as it possible (not only at daily stand-ups). I know, that there are situations when presence of one or another person is required, but in all other case we shouldn't wait for anyone.