Characters you find in a daily standup
Standup (not to be confused with standup comedy!) is the most important ritual of the Agile process. For anyone who doesn’t know what it is: a daily meeting (which everyone loves *wink*) in which all members of a team gather and tell one by one what they did and what they are going to do. Every team has a diverse set of people, thus giving me a chance to write about the kind of characters that can be seen in a daily standup.
Disclaimer: any resemblance to a real-life person is totally intended!
Enthusiastic one
Even on the gloomiest day, when nothing is working or sprint end is approaching and not a single story is completed, there is always one teammate who is always full of enthusiasm and starts the standup with a bang.
Too much information
There is always one teammate who will elaborate every minute thing that they did and what they will do today, tomorrow, day after tomorrow, and the next day and forever. Someone has to give subtle hints to stop, until the scrum master has to finally say it.
Storyteller
This one can make up things out of nothing. For example: “yesterday my focus was on task 101. I started working on it by creating subtask 102 for it, and then I realized that another subtask 103 is needed for it, and today I will be working on which subtask to do first so that the task is completed in optimal time and in the most efficient manner.”
Forgetful one
This one will do a substantial amount of work but at the time of standup will forget what they did. Looks like Men in Black wiped out their memory just before the standup!
No idea
Similar to the forgetful one, you can have one teammate who has no idea what they are doing and why they are doing it. But all is well.
Repeater
This one will keep repeating the same things, in a different order, each day. If you wake them up in the middle of the night, they can say the same thing half asleep.
Superwoman/man
80% of the work is done by 20% of the workforce, and there is one teammate who, when they speak about the tasks done in a day, everyone knows they have a superhuman on the team.
The worrier
One teammate will keep worrying about the tasks that need to be done and is in a constant state of worry.
Thankful one
One teammate will keep thanking everyone who helped them and keep patting the backs of others. They do it so many times that you start thinking, do they really mean it?
That’s it for now!