Daily Standups

Introduction

Standups are a staple in the tech industry, serving as a key component of agile methodologies to ensure team alignment, facilitate quick problem-solving, and foster open communication on a daily basis.

As part of your open-source experience, beginning in the second week, you'll be engaging in daily standups to ensure continuous communication and progress within your project team. Standups will be conducted asynchronously via a dedicated bot in Slack. This lesson outlines expectations for your daily standup participation, provides examples of meaningful updates, and introduces the rubric for evaluating your standup contributions at the end of the term.

Standup Questions

Every day, you will be prompted to answer the following questions:

  1. How do you feel today?
  2. What have you done since yesterday?
  3. What will you do today?
  4. Anything blocking your progress.

Expectations

  • Consistency: Submit your standup updates daily and promptly.
  • Honesty: Provide genuine updates and express real blockers.
  • Clarity: Make your updates concise but informative.
  • Responsiveness: Acknowledge and act upon feedback or questions from mentors and teammates.

Examples of Standup Updates

Good Update

The following is an example of a good update. It clearly communicates the work that was completed and what the plan is for today (to help inform other team members if their work may be impacted). While their are no blockers at the moment, it provides a heads up to the team members and the Technical Mentor that you may need some assistance in a specifically mentioned area.

  • How do you feel today? Energized and ready to tackle some complex issues!
  • What have you done since yesterday? Completed the integration of the new authentication module and tested it for potential security vulnerabilities. All tests passed successfully.
  • What will you do today? I plan to start working on optimizing the database queries to improve application performance, as discussed in our last team meeting.
  • Anything blocking your progress. No blockers at the moment, but I might need some guidance on database optimization techniques later.

Bad Update

This update is not useful at all. It doesn't provide any information that is actionable to your team mates or to your Technical Mentor.

  • How do you feel today? Fine.
  • What have you done since yesterday? Some work.
  • What will you do today? More of the same.
  • Anything blocking your progress. Not really.

Is this Good or Bad?

Update 1

Read through each of the following updates and assess if you think the update is of good quality or of poor quality and why. After you have come to your conclusion, expand the answer below each and see if it matches your assessment.

  • How do you feel today? Pretty good, a bit tired.
  • What have you done since yesterday? I managed to fix a couple of bugs in the login feature and started looking into the user feedback module.
  • What will you do today? Planning to continue with the user feedback module and maybe start drafting documentation for the features I worked on.
  • Anything blocking your progress. Struggling a bit with understanding the best practices for documentation. Might need to look up some resources or ask for help.
Answer

Moderate Update: This update gives a clearer picture of the intern's current state, their recent accomplishments, and plans for the day, along with identifying a potential area where they might need assistance. However, it could still benefit from more specifics, such as the nature of the bugs fixed or the aspects of the user feedback module they're working on, to fully engage teammates and mentors.

Update 2

  • How do you feel today? Well, to start with, I woke up feeling quite groggy because I stayed up a bit too late last night watching the final episodes of my favorite TV series, which, by the way, had a rather disappointing ending. So, I guess you could say I'm not entirely at my best today, but I'm hoping that after my second cup of coffee, I’ll start feeling a bit more energized and ready to tackle the day ahead of me. It’s always interesting how much of an impact a good night's sleep has on your productivity the next day, don’t you think?

  • What have you done since yesterday? Yesterday was quite a day; let me tell you. I started off by checking my emails, as one does, and then I moved on to reviewing some of the code I wrote the day before. I spent quite a bit of time trying to debug this one annoying issue that I couldn't seem to figure out. It was related to the new feature I've been working on, you know, the one I mentioned last week? Anyway, after a lot of back and forth and consulting with various online forums, I finally managed to get it sorted out, though it took much longer than I had anticipated. Then, in the afternoon, I had a long meeting with the team where we discussed our progress on the project and outlined our goals for the next sprint. It was a productive meeting, but it did run over the scheduled time, which meant I had to push back some of the other tasks I had planned for the day.

  • What will you do today? Today, my main focus is going to be on continuing the work I started on that new feature. There's still a lot to do, and I'm expecting it to take up most of my day. I'll need to write some new code, test it thoroughly, and probably go back and make a few tweaks to ensure everything is running smoothly. I also need to catch up on some documentation that I've been putting off for a while now. It's not the most exciting part of the job, but it's important, and I know I need to get it done. Plus, I promised my teammate that I'd review their code by the end of the day, so I'll have to make sure I set aside some time for that as well. It's going to be a busy day, but I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get through most of it if I manage my time effectively.

  • Anything blocking your progress. At the moment, I don't think there's anything specifically blocking my progress, but I am a bit concerned about how much I have on my plate today. I tend to underestimate how long tasks will take me, which can lead to me feeling rushed and stressed. I'm also still trying to get a handle on some of the more advanced features of the software we're using, which can slow me down at times. But I'm determined to push through and make as much progress as possible. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly, and I won't encounter any major issues.

Answer

Bad Update: This update is overly verbose, providing too much unnecessary detail about personal matters, general thoughts, and the minutiae of daily tasks, making it challenging to quickly grasp the essential points about work progress, plans, and blockers.

Update 3

  • How do you feel today? Motivated and focused, ready to tackle today's tasks.
  • What have you done since yesterday? I successfully merged the pull request for the new login feature after addressing all code review feedback. I also initiated a round of user testing to gather early feedback and identify any usability issues.
  • What will you do today? My main goal is to start working on the user profile management feature, focusing on designing the database schema and drafting the API specifications. I plan to collaborate with the UX team to ensure the feature's user interface will be intuitive and efficient.
  • Anything blocking your progress. Currently, I'm waiting for access to the production database to implement the new schema. I've reached out to the database administrator and hope to get the necessary permissions by noon so I can proceed without delays.
Answer

Good Update: This update is concise and informative, clearly communicating feelings, accomplishments, plans, and potential blockers in a manner that's easily digestible and actionable for team members and mentors.

Update 4

  • How do you feel today? Excited and a bit overwhelmed. There's so much to learn, but I'm eager to contribute more significantly.
  • What have you done since yesterday? Spent most of my time getting familiar with the project's documentation and codebase. I've set up my development environment following the project guidelines and ran a few test builds to ensure everything works as expected.
  • What will you do today? Today, I plan to start small by picking up a beginner-friendly issue related to documentation improvements. This will allow me to make a tangible contribution while continuing to navigate and understand the larger codebase. I also intend to attend a virtual meet-up with other project contributors to gain insights and ask questions.
  • Anything blocking your progress. So far, the main challenge has been the steep learning curve associated with the project's technology stack. However, I've been utilizing online tutorials and forums (cites specific link), and I'm slowly becoming more comfortable with the tools and languages used in the project.
Answer

Good Update: This update is a good example for a student who is new to contributing to an open-source project. It acknowledges the learning process, sets realistic goals for contribution, and identifies areas of challenge without being deterred by them.

Rubric for Evaluating Standup Updates

1. Completeness

  • Excellent: Provides detailed responses to all questions, clearly outlining activities and feelings.
  • Good: Answers all questions with sufficient detail but may lack some specificity in describing tasks or emotions.
  • Fair: Responses are brief and lack detail in one or more areas, making it difficult to assess progress or well-being.
  • Poor: Omits one or more questions, offers very little detail, providing no meaningful insight into daily activities or challenges.

2. Clarity and Conciseness

  • Excellent: Updates are clear, concise, and to the point, with no unnecessary information, making it easy for team members to understand tasks and progress.
  • Good: Generally clear and concise but may include minor unnecessary details or could be more straightforward in explaining tasks.
  • Fair: Some responses are vague or overly wordy, clouding the understanding of activities or needs.
  • Poor: Updates are unclear, overly brief, or excessively verbose, hindering comprehension of activities, feelings, or blockers.

3. Engagement and Responsiveness

  • Excellent: Actively engages with feedback or questions from mentors and teammates, demonstrating a willingness to collaborate and adjust based on input.
  • Good: Responds to feedback and questions but may not always initiate or seek out engagement actively.
  • Fair: Occasionally engages with or responds to direct questions but generally does not show proactive communication.
  • Poor: Rarely or never responds to feedback, questions, or direct communications, showing a lack of engagement with the team process.