Good communication is the most important discipline when working at a remote-first company. As we're not all in the same room, we need to constantly be transparent about our progress, plans, and problems (PPP). If not, we'll risk working in isolation and might end up working on the wrong things. This is where standups come in ✨
Your standup is a written message you'll share with your department every day before you start working. The standup has two main purposes:
<aside> 📝 Your standup is a tool to help you plan your day ahead and make sure you stay committed to working on the things that bring momentum.
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<aside> 📣 Your standup is a way to communicate your progress, plans, and problems to your team in a simple and easy-to-understand way.
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A good standup follows the simple PPP (progress, plans, problems) framework, and is short, measurable, and easy to understand. It's structured to hold yourself accountable to your most important priorities and to give your teammates an easy way to follow your progress.
A few things to keep in mind as you write your standup:
Make your plan measurable.
Copy/paste and follow up on yesterday's plan.
It's okay to change your plan during the day.
Don't list your meetings — list the desired outcome of them (or don't list them at all)
✅ I reached this goal / completed this task yesterday 🛑 I did not begin working on this task yesterday 🛠 I started working on this, but didn't finish (NB: remember to add a comment to explain your progress)