In the last episode of "Cloudspace does Agile," I talked about the weekly meetings. I also promised a post about the daily meetings. Here you go. And of course, feel free to comment on this post, or get in touch with me if you've got questions. tim @ my company's domain dot com. (Darn spammers!)

This will be a quick post. Not because I'm lazy, but because I'm making a point. The daily meeting should be quick.

Ever heard the term "stand up meeting"? It's because people literally stand, so they don't get comfortable in cushy executive chairs, and drag meetings out. 5-10 minutes tops.

The whole implementation team should be at this meeting. If a client rep wants to be present, that's okay, but this is not the time for them to change plans or discuss ideas. If they're there, it's to help solve problems that the development team encounters mid-sprint, and to stay appraised of progress.

The team lead should have every person on the implementation team answer three questions.

• What have you been doing?
• What are you doing next?
• What's blocking you from making progress?

The answer to the last one is nearly always "nothing" but we have to ask. If there's something blocking, get it solved. Developers should ask the client for assistance. If the client wants to use some new API, there's a good chance they've got a contact at the company providing the API. Use their network of people to make life easier.

The value of the first two should be obvious. They keep everyone appraised of the project's progress.

There should be no planning done during these meetings. We're simply checking in to make sure everyone has been, and will continue to be performing as optimally as possible. Stick to the plan of these being simply status updates, and not strategy discussions. These meetings are more about the technical and implementation details, so if the client has a tech person, this is a good meeting for them to be a part of.

Got questions? Email me, tim @ my company's domain.com