We cancelled standups and let the team build
Honestly, if you think spending 15 minutes (we’re closer to 10 though) talking to your team to ensure that you know what others are working on and they know what you are working on, then I don’t want to work with you.<p>It’s not wasted time, and even if you don’t care what I’m working on I still care that you know so that we don’t spend two weeks building something only for you to go “Oh, that won’t work after the changes I made to the core.... why didn’t you come by my desk and ask me “are you intending to change the core code in a way that invalidates all assumptions we had two weeks ago when we started working on this?” And do so like clockwork every day, even though I’d answer no 6 times before suddenly answering yes?<p>“But we already communicate in the team outside of the Stand-up!” You say. Ok then, tomorrow at your standup, have everyone go though someone else’s points, I’ll say what you did yesterday, if you have blockers and what you’ll do today. If everyone does this flawlessly, then yes the daily is wasted time, but for every mistaken assumption you hear, that is a potential mistake or missed opportunity or just general annoyance you avoided simply by talking 10 minutes together.<p>Now don’t get me started on the number of bad excuses that you avoid by having daily stand ups that’s a whole other  subject, but also an extremely valuable element. “I’m waiting on Kevin to finish X” “Does Kevin know this?” “Yes of cause! “ Kevin: “Wait what? Err what am I supposed to be doing? That’s not on the board”. Etc.