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0 pointsvfc16y ago0 comments

You can't put 10 people in a room for a meeting for just a couple of minutes, that does not exist. The time people spend before the meeting not working just chatting around waiting, the natural inertia of the group it takes time to get everyone in a room.

Count the whole overhead time, from the moment people stop working normally waiting for the meeting, till the moment people come back to their seats, add up the extra coffee pause that people take afterwards that people would not usually take.

You are looking on average, at easily 15 to 20 minutes per person minimum a day, probably more.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

mcv6y ago· 2 in thread

Even so, 15 to 20 minutes on a whole day is nothing. It's less than what you lose on coffee or toilet breaks.

vfc1OP6y ago

20 minutes is a lot of time, add that and at the end of the week you got around 2 hours, that's half a morning per week and close to a whole 8h day of work per month just on the time for standups.

It's not just the time itself though, it's the interruption that prevents you from starting longer tasks effectively.

Can't really account for that, work is not only about summing up minutes on a time tracking tool. There is rythm, there is acceleration, there is a productive state and there is deceleration.

Standups disrupt all that without any real benefit, other than serving as a daily reminder that you better hurry up with what you are doing - which most people don't need.

scruple6y ago

20 minutes across my team of 12 is not nothing, it's 4 man hours. When I see it communicated in that manner, the sheer pointlessness of these daily meetings is very easy for me to identify.

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