Standup Meetings Too Large?
We were having a problem with focusing on the stories during the standup meeting so we made a simple change. Moving the whiteboard containing the stories to the standup area. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but because the open workspace is not completely finished, we had to make some adjustments.
That was two days ago... So how did it work? Well, in a nutshell, not as good has we had hoped. As I thought about it some more, I think that part of the problem revolves around the fact that we've got a very large agile team, on the order of 20 or so people at each standup. This causes the standups to be incredibly long. We've ranged anywhere from 20-35 minutes a meeting, and that leads to people getting bored and not paying attention. Not to mention standing that long isn't the most fun thing in the world.
I'm thinking of trying something new. With a team this large, it may be better to focus on discussing the status of each of the stories instead of each individual. Doing so may do a better job of focusing the team on the current iteration's deliverables as well as bringing the meeting down to an acceptable timeframe (10-15 minutes). I see one potential problem with this scenario. By focusing on the deliverables more than the team, some of the team members may slip through the cracks, struggling through problem areas without asking for help, therefore adversely impacting team throughput.