Daily Stand-Up Meeting

Best Practices for Daily Stand-Ups

1. Keep it short.
2. Be consistent.
3. Schedule at regular time.
4. Include remote team members by conducting meetings online using a real-time tool like SmartDraw.
5. Avoid deep discussions or going off-topic. You can use a timer to limit each person's time to equal chunks.
6. Make sure everyone has a chance to speak.

Conducting Daily Stand-Up in SmartDraw

Using SmartDraw to conduct your daily stand-up or daily Scrum meeting can add visual clarity to your meeting and make it accessible to remote employees.

Step 1: Start with the Daily Stand Up Template

Open the Daily Standup template in the Meetings and Workshops category on the SmartDraw Dashboard. The template will have some placeholder cards organized into three rows and multiple columns that are supposed to represent your team members.

The three rows should reflect the three things the meeting should address:

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you work on today?
3. Do you have any obstacles/blockers?

Enter the name of your team members into the header section of the columns.

You can add or remove columns as needed using the controls to the left of your workspace.

Step 2: Invite Team Members

To start collaborating, click the Share button in the upper right corner of your app.

1. Click the Share button.
2. Choose Copy Link from the drop down.
3. Make sure the option "Anyone with this link can View and Edit" is selected.
4. Click the Copy Link button and drop that link in an email, Slack, or Teams channel.

NOTE: Make sure you save your meeting template before inviting your team members.

Step 3: Add Tasks and Issues

You can double-click to add text to any of the notes already in your template. You can also drag-and-drop new notes to any of the columns. SmartDraw will automatically expand the columns to make room for new notes. You can also use your keyboard to enter new notes. Simply select an existing sticky note and then hit Ctrl and the arrow key in the direction you want to add a new note.

Everyone can create and move their own cards or you can have a single meeting facilitator add and edit cards.

Set a Timer for Meetings

The daily standup meeting should not exceed 15 minutes. In SmartDraw, you can use our app to create timeblocks to keep everyone on track and on topic. Simply, click the timer button in the Whiteboarding tools drop-down in the upper right corner of the app to add a timer to your workspace. You can set the time period by either typing in the time or using the + and - buttons. Click the blue play button to start.