Most Agile Events were created during a time when the entire workforce was in the same office building. Some companies even had dedicated rooms for specific events that were optimised for that event: a standup room with no chairs, a retrospective room filled to the brim with sticky notes.

At this time, it was common to just go over to a colleague's desk and talk about both work and other things you have in common. It was easy to see when a colleague was busy and hard at work, and to find an organic way in without interrupting someone's workflow. In the same way, it was easy to see when someone was struggling, and you might even walk over and ask, "hey, you look like you need a rubber duck?".

The fairy tale starts

In those glorious days when everyone could see each other, the standup timing made sense. Fifteen minutes, and then back to your regular day. It was also easier for Product Owners, Project Managers, et al. to get information.

Even if some of them still liked to turn the standup into a reporting meeting - that is a different post and a pet peeve of mine - it is not this post.

Because fifteen minutes, in a team of five to eight engineers, is all you need. You raised blockers, you gave a quick thumbs up or thumbs down on how things were going for you, and then you moved back to your desks, talking with each other.

What COVID did was take away the colleagues.

In the beginning, it might have been kind of nice. It was possible to do laundry while working. Lunch moved from a packed sandwich to a fresh one, where the lettuce wasn't dry and the cheese didn't sweat.

And from an employer perspective, you could get rid of a lot of expensive office space. You would also get rid of all that watercooler talk, and people could focus on their code. For a while, we lived in the belief that the only thing that changed was fewer interruptions and more active work time.

Then something started to happen - and it happened to most of us.

We started overfocusing, not being able to solve the problem. A thought hits you!

How about going over to... oh... right... Mr John Doe isn't in my flat. I'll just give him a ca... oh, he is "do not disturb", let's not bother him, I'm sure I'll figure this out...

For some reason, it just became harder to interact and get an exchange of ideas. All of a sudden, the rubber duck wasn't able to provide insight. There was no social interaction, no exchange of ideas, no natural way of signalling "hey, I need a bit of help" without hitting a barrier of statuses like "Away", "Do not disturb", etc.

Scrum masters and facilitators of different kinds held tight to 15-minute standups. Zoom calls were closed off after 15 minutes, and we all went back to our desks - the ones we never left.

But somewhere, sometimes, it continued on for more than 15 minutes.

People started talking to each other, and the raised blocker got addressed. We had found our place to get social interaction and the possibility to get input from that glorious talking rubber duck that used to sit on the desk next to you.

What changed

In reality, the best thing to ever happen to standups was the lockdown. It forced us to reinvent the event into what it was created for.

The important part was never the 15-minute timer or standing up. The important part was getting us all into the same room, and then leaving it together after talking about our current tasks.

This created a natural transition to dive deeper into issues on our way back to our desks. And once we got there, it turned into "oh, let me show you".

The timer, the change of room, the light touch of raising blockers - it was all a ruse to get engineers talking to each other. Over time, this was slightly forgotten, but the lockdown reintroduced the importance of the standup as a connection point.

So, how long should a remote standup be?

I still believe we should be quick in raising blockers and then move on, not going down into the nitty gritty. However, after everyone has had their turn, the timer should keep going.

Book 30 minutes, and allow team members to continue the conversation - even if it isn't 100% by the guide.

For some team members, this might actually be the only time of the day they have social interaction with their colleagues. For less experienced engineers, this has become the new place to find their mentor.

It is important that the time after the standup is voluntary, and that anyone who doesn't want to stay is free to leave.

The standup was never really about standing up or keeping it to 15 minutes. It was about giving people space and a reason to talk to each other.

Remote work didn’t break the standup - it just made the need for it impossible to ignore.