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Comment by richardanaya | Hacker News Reader

I used to be anti standups until I started taking on some leadership roles.

1) it's great for refocusing everyone on monday first thing after a long weekend of hopefully for getting about work

2) it's much easier to follow up with people as a ritual rather than a 1 on 1 interjection, it depersonalizes info gathering that'd be hard for a manager to acquire any other way. Vocal tonality says a lot sometimes.

3) it's a great way to give casual encouragement and recognition occasionally

That said, I only think standups are needed maybe 3 days a week and 10 minutes max usually.

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So in your experience they are bad for the general team member but good for leadership ...

All three of your points suggest you see benefits for the general team member, but when you were the recipient of the 1) focusing / refocusing, 2) management follow up or 3) encouragement and recognition, you yourself did not like that forum?

Is it possible that your team feels the same way as you did when you were in their position?

Yeah. I can get 2) and 3), but myself, standup "refocusing" does the exact opposite. I already know what to work on, I've spent the early morning hours thinking about it. All the standup is doing is clearing my mental cache, destroying all the prep work I've already done in my head, forcing me to cold-start my work after the meeting ends. Pretty much the opposite of focus.

1) yup totally agree - if I am turning up on Monday morning with no goals or objectives, fine. The reality is that Monday morning is when I least want to fuck around and just dive into the stuff that has been knocking around in my head for the last 60 hours. If anything a wrap at the end of the day in the tail end of the week would be more functional to keep everyone on the same page.

3) makes me cringe - the carrot of public praise for doing your job, no thanks. Around the table of peers - everyone knows who has done what. Its up the organasation that the recognition needs to go, and for every manager that is passing it up the org, there is another that is taking credit themselves.

> it depersonalizes info gathering that'd be hard for a manager to acquire any other way.

If a manager is there for the standup, it's not a standup at all. It's an "update management" meeting. Not saying there's anything wrong with that, but that's what it is.

So it sounds good for you, is it felt the same way by everyone?

Not saying it's not, it's just your points come across very first person.

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