Standup vs Status Meeting

The difference between a status meeting and a standup has very little to do with whether people are standing or sitting, or whether they’re in a conference room or huddled around a table. It goes far beyond that.

Status meeting

  • Used by management to update the status of a project or set of tasks
  • Not timeboxed
  • Organized by a project manager or task manager
  • Tasks are often assigned on the fly as gaps are identified
  • Meeting minutes are often recorded and sent out
  • Focus on following a multi-day plan
  • Estimates (often wildly inaccurate) are collected as to hours left on tasks
  • Information expires quickly after meeting, often within minutes or hours

Standup

  • Used by team to autonomously create a plan for the next 24 hours, identify impediments to sprint goal
  • Timeboxed
  • Organized and run by the development team (BA, QA, UX, Developer)
  • Tasks are not assigned
  • No meeting minutes
  • Focus on adapting to daily change and current realities
  • Estimating hours remaining on tasks is not required
  • Information given remains relevant until next standup

The Agile movement has replaced the status meeting with a demo which occurs at the end of each sprint and is used to present a set of features that are actually complete and ready to ship. Standups are not required as part of Agile, although they will often emerge organically on an Agile team. They are required if following the Scrum methodology.

Check out:

https://www.scrum.org/resources/scrum-guide
https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html