What is a Stand-up?

A stand-up is a short meeting (normally held with everyone literally standing up so that it doesn’t take too long).

For more detailed info please follow this link:

Stand-up meeting – Wikipedia (link)

Some background information on Stand-ups

Stand-ups were originally devised for open plan workplaces as part of ‘Agile’ or ‘Sprint’ based approaches to project and team management. (The MA CAT programme adapts the Sprint-Agile for the purposes of artistic learning – something that this Open Learning Course is particuarly focused on.)

During the pivot online that took place when much of the world was locked down, many stand-ups were conducted exclusively online. Long meetings, online or face-to-face, are draining and don’t necessarily lead to the most effective communication.

Arguably, stand-ups work best when we meet online. Meeting online for as stand-up can be done from anywhere you can get access to WiFi or 4G/5G. This means it can happen quickly and without the need to travel.

The ability to use quasi-social work communication technologies such as Slack, MS Teams, Miro, Discord, and other forms of VoIP is akin to a viral funnel, a flattened network of information that moves back and forth between members of a team rather than from the top down (then back up again). In a Basho, you can choose to make this info flow non-hierachical, or leaderless, by regularly making decisions in stand-ups. If you consider information in your basho to be akin to a viral funnel, then the hierarchal cascade of the committee meeting (a conventional funnel) becomes a redundant and unhelpful ritual.

For more detailed info please follow this link: https://medium.com/swlh/the-science-behind-viral-apps-and-how-to-build-one-6a0a7d0591ab (link)

Hosting a Stand-up

An online stand-up shouldn’t disrupt anyone’s flow too much. It’s a quick way of checking in and having a dialogue rather than the lengthy one-way information ‘cascade’ of a committee meeting.

Stand-up ‘Rules’

Here are a few stand-up rules to keep in mind:

Brief: A stand-up meeting must be short; it should last no more than 20 minutes.

Frequent: A stand-up should take place at least once per week but no more than once per day.

Focused: A stand-up helps to keep your basho ‘agile’ and informed using short ‘status updates’. Keep your stand-up focused on the task at hand.

Essential: If you can communicate faster and more efficiently using another method (e.g. chat in Teams) use that method. Remember though, a quick stand-up chat is often the quickest way to resolve something!

Stand-up ‘Format’

A stand-up normally would take this form:

Report: You should each have something to report to your group (no lurkers). Report, invite your peers to respond, then quickly move on.

Actions: Agree on required actions and on who will carry them out.

Follow-up: Make sure you follow-up (act) and check that other’s actions have been completed at the next stand-up.

For Edinburgh University students on this Open Learning course, a stand-up might take place to enable your Basho Facilitator to directly address course queries and to do so quickly and efficiently.

Queries are raised directly during the stand-up (text or asking a question in person). If you want to ask a question during a stand-up raise your (electronic) hand. You can also type your question into the chat box during a stand-up (helps in case you forget or are in a queue of questions).

D-I-T Do it Together

You can choose to host your own stand-ups within your Basho. Use your Basho’s MS Teams Channel to host them by setting a time and date to run the stand up. Just schedule them to take place at times that you are all agreeable to.

Remember short and frequent is much better than long and infrequent!! Use stand-ups to ensure status updates on your Collaborative Inquiry stay on track.

Work, Time, Commitments

Please also remember to take into consideration that many of your peers are working, have personal or family commitments to juggle, or (during the summer semester) might even be living and working in different time zones to you!