Many companies still struggle with long boring meetings that are ultimately not beneficial for either the organization or the participants. Especially IT companies, however, have developed a new trend in this sense - stand-up meetings. As reported by The Wall Street Journal Online, e.g. the American software company Atomic Object holds meetings every morning. Everyone must participate, not discuss non-work matters and stand up. Such meetings are shorter and more efficient. They last about five minutes. Computers and mobile phones are not allowed.
The very concept of stand-up meetings is not new. It has already been used in the Army during World War II and some large companies has adopted it after that. Today it is particularly prevalent in the IT and technology-oriented companies and associated with the so called agile software development methods. These include daily meetings for the developers to say what they did yesterday, what they will do today and what potential obstacles there are on the way to successful completion of their tasks.
Stand-up meetings include even penalties for lateness or the possibility to stop excessively talkative colleagues. At Mountain Goat Software, the sinners being late must sing a song, run around the office building or pay a small fine. If someone feels that a colleague talks too much or do not talk to the point, he can pick up a rubber rat and give it clear that it is time to move elsewhere. Everybody except the injured or pregnant employees must stand. This applies even to the colleagues connected via Skype.
Recent research by VersionOne, which involved more than 6,000 technical employees, indicated that 78% of them take part in stands-up meeting every day. Company interior designers are responding to this trend by designing large and higher tables for stand-up meeetings or even open spaces without furniture for the participants not to be distracted by anything else than a short discussion on the selected topic.
Apart from standing and talking on the matter, the meetings can be even faster when held before lunch or in a cold place. In one company, speakers always hold a ten-pound medicimbal.
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