Senior SEO Specialist Oleksandr Nebylytsia on LinkedIn wondered whether it is really necessary to gather the team at meetings every day.
Senior SEO Specialist Oleksandr Nebylytsia on LinkedIn wondered whether it is really necessary to gather the team at meetings every day.
«Are there any managers here? Explain to me about the meetings (dailies). Why stress your team every day and actually force them to come up with something to say at the meeting?» he asked .
The specialist notes that he understands that this is more of a compulsive thing. «If everyone is doing it, then I am doing it too, or ‘this is how I keep my finger on the pulse of the work processes — like under control,’» he explains his words. «But wouldn’t it be more effective to call meetings situationally — when there is something to discuss? For example, someone from the team has encountered a problem that needs to be discussed. Then there is a sense in the meeting and then it will be effective. Instead of spending at least an hour a day (often more) on pouring from empty to empty.»
The IT people answer Alexander’s questions.
Oleksa Mashyts, QA Evangelist, notes that daily meetings are part of the process. «Daisies in Scrum have their own purpose, which is explained in the Scrum Guide. But I doubt that an SEO specialist works in a Scrum team. In any case, discussing dailies by themselves is a conversation without context. Any action can be either 100% useful or 100% useless,» he says.
SEO Freelancer Oleksandra Oliynyk said that she worked in a company where almost all copywriters, backend, frontend, marketers and videographers were called to such a meeting every day. «Everyone stood in a circle and took turns, telling each other what they would do today. This manager even had Scrum Master written in his chat. It really surprised me the first week, I thought, is it really possible to remember everything, but then it turned out that it was just for show, you could say anything. DevOps always got burned out. And, of course, after such management and the understanding that my work was not moving, because in order to change something on the site, I had to wait two weeks for approval from this manager so that she would redirect it to the programmer, I quit. And most of them just sat quietly and did something to do,» she shared.
Igor Shulezhko, an SEO expert, describes the need for daily logs as follows: «You need to know the status of yesterday’s troubles. So that you can then understand whether it needs to be resolved or not. And yes, the introduction of daily logs has increased efficiency,» he notes.
But Human Resource Partner Vladyslav Vinokur says that she rarely implemented daily calls in her practice. «We always started the week with a general meeting: we defined goals, priorities, and gave updates. We ended with a summary: what was done, what was not done, and what the next steps were.
This gave the employee space to reflect on the week, analyze the tasks and not live in constant control, but in awareness,» she says. In the middle of the week, Vladyslav practiced situational calls if there was a project launch or the area of responsibility was complex. «Also 1:1 — for synchronization, support and deeper discussions. The teams were online, and we were constantly in touch,» she shared.
According to the expert, dailies are often about control, not about the result. «Especially if the tasks are long-term, people have more stress about „what to say“ than about real benefit. For tracking, there are daily written reports. If the processes are dynamic, a report at the end of each day. But these are exceptions, not the rule,» says Voalislava.
At the same time, Vitaly Ivanov, Product Delivery Manager, believes that if dailies take at least an hour a day, or even more, then something is wrong with you. «I am involved in three teams in dailies. In a team of four people, we synchronize in 2-3 minutes, and if necessary, we stay to discuss issues. In a team of six people, dailies usually take up to 10 minutes. And in the third team, dailies are held every other day, the team is large (about 15 people) and therefore dailies there usually take 20-25 minutes. And after it, there are usually agreements for several calls between team members in a narrower circle, for 2-4 people,» he shares his experience.
Developer Marina Volodkina says that wherever she worked, daily meetings took 10-25 minutes for the entire team of 6-10 people. «Why think about what to say? Briefly tell us what you did yesterday, what progress you made, blockers. I’m not a manager, I’m a dev. Stand-ups are fine with me. You can often find someone to review a task, because when you write in the general chat, everyone freezes, I say it out loud to the leader that you need a code review, and he assigns it. You can ask a quick question that you don’t know who to ask. And I somehow collect my thoughts, I draw up a plan for the day myself. And the leader may say that it’s unnecessary, and this has a higher priority,» she shared.
Artem Bezruchko, QA Lead, believes that dailys are a guarantee of discipline and responsibility, plus support for processes in the world of remote work. «This is one of the pillars on which the team is based, especially if people have not seen each other in person. Everyone is responsible and collected in different ways, which is why regular general activities are needed. And no one has canceled the traditional status check,» he explains.
In turn, Dmitry Popov, Full-stack Software engineer, explains: «If we are talking about the daily meeting, then in Scrum it is strictly no more than 15 minutes. This meeting is created to synchronize work and identify blockers, and not for reporting to superiors. Only the Scrum team is at the daily meeting. Everyone else, if they are present for some reason, does not have a say by default. As Scrum says, „consistency“ reduces complexity, creates a habit and a clear schedule, so the meeting is always planned, but if not? what can I say, it will end in 5 minutes. There are no problems. The daily meeting should be methodologically prescribed, it should not be an exceptional meeting planned by God-knows-when. I don’t have to ask the manager about it, it should already be planned.»
