I don't really understand this sentiment. Management joining or not should have 0 effect on standup. They should only be there to hear what folks are working on and or also to give their own updates.
Management being present really does change the dynamic of pretty much any meeting. I watch as junior members of the team either clam up or start show boating. There is even a correlation between camera off and management being present. IMO developers have their best discussions when there is nobody there to impress.
I as a manager join the stand up, and I offer to the team the things I am working on and the blockers I am dealing with, just like everyone else in the standup. Maybe it makes more sense for me because as a manager I have a little bit of dev work that happens as well which is maybe just a culture thing at my work place. I can see how it would be detrimental to join standup and be seen as an auditor of all the things that the team is working on.
It is slightly different if the manager is also a developer, in which case they also have blockers to report. We have scrum masters to deal with blockers. They are not management, just one of the developers most of the time although I have had dedicated scrum masters in the past. The crucial thing is to make the standup a safe space for devs to openly discuss problems without their line manager breathing down their necks. The other thing management tend to do in stand ups is to use the time for irrelevant announcements, most of which should have been an email.
Wait WHAT. Who is standing up then?! Just the workers? haha That is hilarious. If you never had the stand up again, do you think anything would change in your day-to-day?
To expand on the idea a bit here, I thought the point was like a huddle between plays for the players. Yes, there should be a communication line out of the huddle to get information and such, but by and large the idea is to empower the team to do things the way that they think it needs doing.
Yes, exactly. Of course, lots of places do have intrusive management and turn standups into another form of supervision, but that's really not the point. It's sort of sad/ironic that GP was mocking the entire idea of a developer-led standup.
I'm a PM now and I run my team's standups, but even that may not be ideal depending on the perception of PMs within the organization. I think it's great when there's a tech lead or senior team member who wants to do the job -- they have the authority and experience to resolve issues quickly, but are still perceived as a collaborator, not a supervisor.
PM has "manager" in the name, but it's not management. Literally everything a good PM does comes from credibility, competence and soft power. A PM's primary mandate is to make a product that benefits the user, but we don't make staffing decisions, do 1:1s, performance reviews or other "management" things. It's why the job is hard.
But I openly acknowledge that PM can be perceived as a tentacle of management, which is why I said it's not necessarily right to follow my current example.
I know almost no one does this, but the absolute best standup meetings I've experienced have meeting of the just workers, by just the workers, to let just the workers know what's going on around them so they can self-direct.
The addition of management always turns it into a status update.
I think standup is a great way to communicate blockers or solutions (understanding that it will be quick, else you parking lot it until after the meeting) with teammates. It restricts interruptions to that 15 minute block instead of randomly throughout the day (which can break flow).
