Did you know business professionals attend as many as 17 meetings every single week?
With so much time spent in meeting rooms, it’s unsurprising that many of them felt the meetings impeded their work. 73% said they have worked on other things during meetings and 91% admitted meeting daydreaming!
Fortunately, there are meeting structures that are far more efficient and offer more valuable benefits for your team as a whole.
Adopting a stand-up meeting into your daily work routine could be exactly what your office needs to boost productivity, come together as a team, and reduce costly roadblocks from holding you back.
How does a stand-up meeting do all of this you ask? Follow along to discover the benefits of daily stand-ups and how you can best implement this meeting structure for impressive results.
What Is a Stand-Up Meeting?
A stand-up meeting is exactly what it sounds like. These meetings are a short 5-15 minute catch-up in which participants stand in a circle and take turns sharing.
Ideally, stand-up meetings take place daily and include some kind of speaking object to indicate whose turn it is to speak and share. The purpose of these meetings is to answer three major questions.
1. What have I accomplished since the last stand-up meeting (yesterday)
2. What will I be doing now
3. What obstacles or roadblocks are impeding my progress
These meetings are addressed to the entire team to encourage open communication and free up opportunities for problem-solving.
The Benefits of Daily Stand-Ups
Why a stand-up meeting you ask? This short meeting structure has proven invaluable for company growth and team morale based on a few key stand-up benefits.
Positive Team Building
Sending your managers to sit in a meeting room for hours on end consistently illustrates one crucial flaw.
There’s no opportunity to encourage a positive team atmosphere. Employees sit and listen to their boss give orders, then report back to that same boss without addressing the rest of the team. The other managers in the room are probably even zoning out when a topic isn’t directly related to their work.
By holding these short, team-focused activities, the participants are encouraged to engage and listen to their co-workers. This fosters an environment where team members report to one another, forging a more unified bond among the entire team.
Improves Collaboration
Now that your employees are reporting to one another and staying engaged and focused throughout the entire meeting, the opportunity for collaboration is brought to life.
If the environment is comfortable for team members to open up about their struggles with projects and tasks, other team members will have the chance to jump in and help out when needed. By taking on this team-focus approach, asking for and receiving help from co-workers is no longer a threat.
Instead, you’ll be able to utilize your team’s unique talents and skills to better carry out important tasks and grow the business.
Instead of struggling through a task alone, each team member will have the chance to open up the project and receive valuable help that can save time and elevate the results.
Exchange of Knowledge
Even if your business structure doesn’t support collaboration on projects, the potential for knowledge transfer between employees is opened up by these daily stand-ups.
The stand-up meeting isn’t intended to be a problem-solving session. This would lead to incredibly long meetings where interest is lost and participants begin to tune out.
Instead, the meetings address the problems that are present and invite co-workers to reconnect after the meeting to address the problems where they may be able to help. This is not only another fantastic opportunity for team building but offers a chance for employees with extended knowledge in a specific area to help their coworkers grow and develop.
In the long run, you’ll see an impressive ROI for your team’s capabilities and qualifications.
Reduces Roadblocks
Bringing up roadblocks and issues with a project can be intimidating for an employee to do on their own. Approaching the boss or even asking coworkers for help is something that takes a lot of team building and confidence to adopt.
The problem with this is that instead of getting help and working through the issue faster, employees will often struggle through trying to come up with a solution on their own. This can leave them sitting on unnecessary roadblocks for days or even weeks with no significant progress.
By encouraging this daily sharing and holding the space for a non-judgemental environment, employees can more comfortably ask for help and tackle those problems head-on before they pile up on them.
You may even notice an increase in productivity based on the reduced amount of hold-ups!
Improved Understanding of Goals
Poor communication is one of the primary reasons for failure among businesses. Without open communication and understanding, your team will never get the opportunity to forge common goals. Instead, the only driving force in their workday will be their individual goals.
Of course, with daily stand-ups, each member of the team will have the chance to learn more about what their coworkers are doing and gain a better understanding of your brand’s collective goals and how they play into those.
By being more familiar with what the entire team is working on, their task or project gains a whole new level of perceived value.
This can play a large part in leading your team and encouraging dedicated buy-in.
Mental and Physical Health Break
Beyond all the team-building benefits, daily stand-up meetings are fantastic for your employee’s mental and physical health.
If your team spends the entire day at their desk, looking at a computer screen, they are actually increasing their risk for health conditions down the road. Things like diabetes, heart disease, and even migraines are common for office workers because of the stagnant state of their job.
By giving your employees a chance to stand up, stretch their legs, and maybe even walk around for a few minutes, they’ll experience an incredible difference in their health.
Add in the benefits of these micro-breaks for their mental game and you’ve got a burnout-proof activity to engage and re-energize your staff.
Boosts Productivity and Focus
Stand-up meetings work to boost productivity and improve focus in 2 simple ways.
First, in alignment with what we mentioned above, a little break from screens and desks is powerful for helping the mind recover and avoid burnout. By taking a 15-minute breather from their tasks, they are often able to jump back to work with more energy and vigor than before.
Second, the anticipation of sharing often keeps your team more accountable for the task at hand. When they know they’ll be sharing their progress, they have more incentive and motivation to make that progress.
And of course, with collaborative help and advice, they’ll be able to problem-solve more efficiently and complete their tasks in record time.
How To Host an Effective Stand-Up Meeting
The benefits of daily stand-ups are undeniable, however, you won’t see any of the advantages, if you’re meetings aren’t carried out with care.
Here are the key dos and don’t you need to follow to ensure your stand-up meeting is as effective as possible.
Everyone Stands
As we mentioned earlier, there are very important advantages to physically standing for the meeting. It’s not only good for your employee’s health, but it encourages more focus and attention during the meeting.
Unfortunately, humans are almost hardwired to resort to leaning or sitting down, rather than standing.
Keep everyone in your meeting on their feet at all times by ensuring there are no places for leaning to ‘accidentally’ occur. Hold your meeting in an open space with no desks or furniture that could invite them in or even start with a stretch to encourage movement.
Keep it Short
The reason these meetings can capture attention and boost productivity is that they are nice and short. When a stand-up meeting begins to exceed that 15-minute mark, you’ll begin to notice the level of enthusiasm and attention drifts.
If things go on for too long, you’ll just end up with a room full of unengaged employees with sore legs.
No Devices
Set a rule from day one that no devices are allowed at the stand-up meetings.
Because these meetings are so short, it should be perfectly reasonable to expect employees to leave their phones, laptops, and whatever other tech they use at their desks.
While the intention of that device may be good, they quickly become a distraction that undoes the benefits of these team-building circles.
Stay on Topic
This isn’t a social event.
While it’s great to see your team bonding and getting to know one another, chatting about the weekend or the latest show on Netflix is only going to cut into your meeting time.
Stay away from socialization or topic drifting to keep these meetings as short and effective as possible.
Regulate the Time and Place
For the best results, your stand-up meeting should be held at the same time and place every single day.
This does a few key things for your workers.
First, they know what is expected and can show up on time and be prepared every time
Second, they have an adequate and even amount of time between each meeting to tackle tasks and have something to report to their team on.
And third, there is no excuse for missing out. They won’t have to wonder when the best time to book appointments or schedule tasks is because they know that a 15-minute time slot is accounted for.
Encourage Preparation
There’s nothing worse than hearing “I can’t remember” in a daily brief.
If your employees are “forgetting” what they accomplished, they miss out on the chance to share and learn from others. Instead of growing together as a team, these meetings become a waste of time altogether.
Encourage employees to take 5 minutes before the scheduled meeting each day to prepare what they need to get the most out of the meeting. This could be the difference between knowledge transfer and collaboration vs poor team atmosphere.
Start on Time
Never delay your start time. If a few employees are running behind, simply start without them.
If your meeting never begins until everyone is there, your employees won’t prioritize punctual attendance. The problem with this is that your meeting time will gradually move and actually cost your team valuable time.
This results in longer feeling meetings that cut into the time your employees could be turning out results.
Use a Speaking Object
While this may feel silly at the beginning, a speaking object is incredibly valuable for focus and attention.
The object indicates whose turn it is to speak and reduces the outside chatter that can get out of hand very easily. Beyond keeping the room silent, this object levels the playing field and equalizes employees for better sharing.
In a short time, your employees will develop a lot of respect for that speaking object and learn to give the holder their undivided attention.
Stick to the Questions
Remember those questions we mentioned earlier? Those will be vital for keeping your meeting on track.
By prioritizing those three core questions, you’ll be able to get the most out of each employee’s share time without falling off-topic or losing the plot.
These questions also make preparing and speaking easier for your staff. They won’t have to worry about what to say because their only job is to answer the telling questions.
Keep it Small
While it would be amazing to have every member of your staff participate, the size of your stand-up meeting is crucial.
If too many teammates are involved, the meeting can drag on for far too long. Only include as many people as realistic to complete the meeting in 15 minutes.
If you have a large team, ask one representative from each project or department to take part and then disperse the information amount their smaller team afterward.
Stand-Up Meetings for Success
Now that you know what a stand-up meeting is and the benefits it presents for your company, you can begin to integrate this unique meeting structure for success. From boosting productivity to creating a more cohesive team environment, you’ll love how this simple daily practice can elevate your business for the better.
Want to learn more about increasing your company’s productivity and slaying the competition? Get in touch with us today to discover how we can help you advance your brand’s development to see incredible results.
