I was asked to write about “Is Your Scrum Standup Slowing You Down?” for SitePoint. Here’s an excerpt:

Agile management has become increasingly popular in the tech world, in part because it addresses some of the special challenges associated with software development, such as rapid release cycles and clear open discussion of complex topics with steep learning curves. Among the most popular agile approaches is a technique called Scrum, which outlines a set of rituals, roles, and artefacts to help a team adopt an agile approach, and track its effectiveness.

One of the rituals that keeps Scrum teams working effectively is the daily standup. A daily standup gives everybody in the team the opportunity to share with the rest of the team, and anyone who cares to listen: what they’ve been working on, what they’re planning to do next, and what ‘blockers’ (or outside obstacles) they may have encountered. Handled consistently, a daily standup doesn’t get in the way of productivity, and increases the transparency of the project, so everybody knows what everybody else is doing.

Read the rest of my article about Is Your Scrum Standup Slowing You Down? on the SitePoint blog.