How to handle teammates that hog up time in Standup meetings?

Introduction

Have you ever been in a meeting where you or your teammates were not given the chance to speak-up or discuss your tasks and ask your questions because there was that one single team or member who spent more time than they are supposed to with the manager of the meeting, discussing aspects related to their own assignment without giving consideration to the time limit or other teams waiting in line?! There is a high chance that you have gone through or experienced this situation yourself at least once during your career or academic studies. In this article, we are going to provide some point that will help you to deal with that.

Standup meetings

In today’s world, time is money. For example, every second that passes by in wall street, thousands or millions of transactions are made, companies and individuals can lose or gain a huge amount of money if they do not react quickly or in a timely manner. A company can lose a patent or an invention to its competitor, just because they were seconds late. This is a fast-moving world that does not wait for people who are slow. After understanding the importance of time specifically in the business industry, let’s explain briefly what are standup meetings. Standup meetings are basically group meetings that are conducted between participants with one simple difference that you might have already guessed it, it is conducted while the participants are standing. The main aim of conducting the meeting with participants standing is to make the meeting duration short and quick, where just basically the main feedback or essential tasks are discussed and then everyone is back to their own work. This gives managers and teams the opportunity to be updated on projects’ progress, potential issues and prioritize tasks. This type of meetings is currently being used widely in companies and even in universities and schools. Standup meetings can last between 15 to 30 minutes depending on the size of the teams and project.

Importance of Standup meetings

Among the unique features of standup meetings is that they do not need to be conducted in meeting rooms, equipped with chairs and projectors, instead they can be conducted in hallways, courtyards or in any other area that can just accommodate the participating number of people. Standup meetings give all members the chance to present and share their work and update briefings in a concise and effective manner. This creates some kind of leaning forward concentration in the meeting among the participants instead of the traditional laid-back approach of participants sitting on chairs and listening to prolonged hours to the presenting participant. The standing position of participants creates and boosts participants attention and information retention. This helps in speeding meetings up, which can be a huge waste of time if conducted in the traditional way. This improves productivity due to the minimal disturbance of the workforce.

Problem Identification

Standup meetings are not meant to last long as they are intended to address main issues and updates in brief details and in a clear manner. However, some individuals or teams do miss the main point of standup meetings and go into details taking so much time and wasting their own and others time. This inconsiderate behavior creates a toxic waste environment that badly affects all teams and the organization as a whole. Standup meetings are not intended to discuss each and every step that was taken to solve an issue but rather to be concise and to the point with your presentation. Some team members might not get the chance to represent their work, concerns or issues, giving a bad impression to the manager or the team leader.

How to handle a Standup meeting?

There are three main players in a meeting, the presenter (the person who is talking and presenting his work and issues he/she is facing), the manager (the person who is running the meeting and responsible for the combined work of all teams) and the coworkers or teammates (coworkers or teammates who are working in the same team as the presenter or working in other teams and on other tasks than the presenting team). There are many ways by which someone can handle such situation. The teams who did not get the chance to present their work at all or in an appropriate way because they were given no time, can talk to the manager separately about such problem. They can also call out the presenter in a polite way stating that they are not going to have time to present their issues and share their progress. You can also make a bold move of informing your teammates and manager that you have another meeting and you are going to leave. The meeting manager should set a time limit of 3 minutes to 5 minutes per team depending on the size of the team. An experienced manager should notice when time limit is exceeded and should stop or warn the presenting team. A good manager should give an equal chance to all teams and team members to present their selves. The third player, who is the presenting person who is exceeding the time limit should be considerate and respectable of his/her teammates. He/she should time himself/herself and tackle the main points and issues in his/her work.

Conclusion

People like those who spend more time than their time limit and limit the chances of their teammates and coworkers to sufficiently present themselves, by trying to over spot the light on themselves and their work, will always exist, because people are of different personalities and characteristics. To amend such behavior, we should highlight the issue on the spot and advise the manager and teammates of the problem and how such behavior could lead to workplace toxicity. If we keep saying: yes, I am against it without taking action the moment it happened, it will always exist. However, if the community condemned it and took action right away, that would help limit the problem, resolve the issue and lessen the chances of it happening again. So, take action!