Daily Standups: The Definitive Overview

Standup meetings are one of the most commonly run meetings by teams around the world. In fact, 87% of Agile software teams claim they run daily standup meetings. Despite that, the meetings often don’t get much love from the people who attend them. 

We’ve created a complete overview of the daily standup meeting for you. We differentiate the daily standup from other similar meetings, list different formats, coaching questions, and talk about the difference between sync and async standups.

Daily standups are short, structured meetings used in agile project management. Standups last no more than 15 minutes and usually just 5-10 minutes. They are meant to keep everyone on the same page and ensure that all team members are aligned and able to work without blockers.

Teams of different shapes, sizes, and from different industries hold a 15-minute daily standup every workday. The meeting’s purpose is to clarify the day’s work, adjust plans, and engage in quick problem-solving.

The practice of holding a daily team meeting is often attributed to American business magnate John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller would have lunch every workday with the leaders of his company, Standard Oil.

The term “standup” comes from the idea that when everyone is standing, it encourages the team to keep the meeting short. 

Alongside the daily standup, there are two similar meetings that we’ll also cover in this guide: the Daily Scrum and the Daily Huddle. Most people use these terms interchangeably, yet there are some important distinctions, which we cover below.

The daily standup is the term most people are familiar with when it comes to daily meetings. It doesn’t have a fixed format and it doesn’t originate in any specific management theory or agile framework. In terms of its common practices, it lives between the Daily Scrum and the Daily Huddle.

“Daily Standup” is often used as a catch-all term for daily meetings that aren’t explicitly the Daily Scrum or the Daily Huddle. In our definition, agile teams that don’t follow Scrum hold daily standups.

Nonetheless, the daily standup format takes inspiration from XP, Scrum, and other daily meeting approaches. Every team has a different way of running Daily Standups, and since there’s no clear origin for the practice, there are also no clear rules.

Scrum teams practice a variation of the daily standup called the Daily Scrum. It’s the most restrictive approach because the Daily Scrum meeting is officially defined and prescribed with dos and don’ts in the Scrum Guide.

Daily Scrums are held every day of a development team’s sprint at the same place and the same time. Older versions of the Scrum Guide used to prescribe 3 questions to structure the Daily Scrum. Now, teams can structure the meeting however they like. 

💡 Read more about the attendees, their roles, and best practices in Daily Scrum: Complete Beginner’s Guide.

All kinds of teams and companies hold daily huddles, including organizations that don’t follow agile methods and principles.

It’s the least restrictive daily meeting because the term has been around the longest with no official definition (although the book Mastering the Rockefeller Habits popularized and defined the term somewhat).

In most organizations, the huddle is a daily pulse check on longer-term goals and the progress towards them. 

Software teams rarely use the Daily Huddle meeting type. It’s more often used by traditional organizations or environments where touching base on metrics is important. For example, at a hotel where all hotel staff come together to discuss what’s on the agenda for the day. Or a car showroom where the Daily Huddle may be used to reiterate sales targets and track progress towards them.

💡 Read more about typical agenda items, templates, and tips in Daily Huddle: Everything You Need For a Great Huddle Meeting.

A fresh daily standup format can be the difference between a gathering people dread and a meeting they find valuable.

Here are some examples of formats you can use to change the meeting’s agenda:

Besides changing the agenda, you can also try running your daily standup differently than gathering in front of a board or on Zoom call.

Instead of holding your meeting in real time, you can switch to an asynchronous approach so that team members can contribute at a time that works for them.

Shifting to an async standup is especially beneficial for teams spread across many timezones – here are some of the benefits you can expect:

When you opt for asynchronous standups, you’ll need a tool to support this approach. Parabol’s online standup tool saves your entire team hassle and time. You can share updates on your own time, set a cadence that suits your team, and see everyone’s contributions in one view.

When you stick to a default pair of standup prompts day after day, team members may find themselves  reciting the same answers over and again. Even worse, they stop listening to others while their minds are focused elsewhere.

To keep your daily standups fun and valuable, facilitators should have an arsenal of questions to mix things up when your sessions are about to go stale. But better prompts are just one aspect of improving standups. Knowing what to say during the meeting can further increase its effectiveness.

Previous versions of the Scrum Guide recommended three questions to ask during the Daily Scrum. The guide no longer prescribes these questions, but many teams – even those not practicing Scrum – still use them to structure their meetings.

Instead of the three Scrum questions from the past, consider one of our 57 daily standup questions, like:

One big complaint about standups is that the meetings goon for too long because it becomes an occasion for complex problem-solving, long-winded discussions, status reports, or on-the-spot action.

For better standups, team members should think less about “what do I want to say?” and more about “what is important for my colleagues to hear?”.

We’ve outlined ten simple principles to help you craft better standup updates. Click each one for more details:

Dig deeper into daily standups with these resources

Here are some other standup resources you might find helpful!