Having trouble keeping your daily stand up’s time boxed?
Sometimes our team had. Until I read a great tip on Kevin E. Schlabach’s blog.
Getting bored in the daily standup? Raise your hands…
The idea is genius in its simplicity. If you’re getting the feeling the current topic is not relevant during the daily standup, raise your hand. The other team members notice your feeling. Some might agree and raise their hands as well. Most of the time, it is sufficient to let the person talking realize that he should put the topic in the parking lot and move on.
The great thing about this is the immediate visibility of consensus. In a few seconds, you get an idea of who is agreeing to your feeling. If nobody raises their hand, it means the topic is still relevant and doesn’t have to be treated outside the daily standup.
I’ve seen a lot of projects where it was always the scrum master asking team members to take discussions out of the daily stand up. Now everybody does it by simply raising their hands. It’s a non-aggressive way to remind people about the goal of a daily standup.
Besides that, it’s fun too 🙂
Just make sure the idea is taken seriously so everybody still has the time to express their thoughts.
SkyCoach 
Thanks for the support!
Remember… raise your hand slowly so it’s not rude!
I still chuckle about the person who raised their hand on themselves… while they were talking.
That’s true, sometimes it can lead to funny situations.
We tried the technique for 2 weeks and reviewed it during the retrospective. Everybody was very positive, and our daily stand-ups were always less than 15 minutes. Thanks for sharing!