During a stand-up meeting we always use whiteboard, such as Trello, RTC and Jira etc. I prefer to use the physical whiteboard instead of the virtual tools.
As an example, let’s briefly introduce the method of our team’s stand-up meeting:
Team size:14 people
Frequency of meetings:Daily at the regularly scheduled time
Duration of the meeting:<= 15 minutes
Meeting content:Each team member reports what he has done, what he is doing now, what to do next and what is blocked. A brief discussion of individual tasks, not discussing details.
Tools used:whiteboard (Physical or Virtual)
Content displayed on the whiteboard:Story list, Tasks list with Todo, Doing, Blocked, Done status. Social contract, calendar, etc.
Process:Before the stand-up meeting, team update the status on the whiteboard, then during the stand-up meeting, everyone referred the whiteboard to report the status.
Choosing a good tool as whiteboard will make the meeting going smoothly. In our team we have been used both physical whiteboard and Virtual tool (Trello) to track the tasks during the daily stand-up meeting. At first, we used a physical whiteboard to track and management transactions. Later we introduced the Trello tool, but now we use the physical whiteboard again. After using virtual tool a period of time, we also found some advantages of Trello, like easier to generate reports, and easier to check the history, etc. but why we used back of physical whiteboard? Let’s have a look at the advantages of physical whiteboards compared to virtual tools.
More visible. The whiteboard is in a common area where people can see everyday. It reinforces the tasks at hand and communicates process. Team members can meet and discuss team issues in front of the whiteboard.Easier to customize. Physical whiteboard has a bigger resolution than a computer screen, we can show more things on it, like user story/task/incident progress, calendar with vacation plan, team member list, social contract and so on, then members can see more information at once from the board. Fostering in-person communication. having a physical board is beneficial because it requires people to be in the same room and communicate face-to-face. This way is more suitable for meetings where everyone works in the same place, all members are on the same board, all eyes follow the position where the reporter’s finger pointed to. Instead, if the team can’t physically be in the same place, then using virtual whiteboard is more suitable.
In short, the interaction and communication have become more “lively” with physical whiteboard.
