Standup
Keep your team aligned and address blockers as they arise with this standup template.
Well run standups help unblock team members and keep the team aligned on goals and project updates. But even the best standup meetings take lots of time. Running standups asynchronously instead of hosting lengthy meetings smoothes team collaboration, keeps everyone in the loop, and helps eliminate blockers as they arise.
Height’s standup template gives every team member a structured, clear way to share updates, and keeps a written record of work updates, project plans, and progress all in one place.
Here’s how:
- Link relevant tasks to each standup task to showcase what you’re working on without having to manually explain everything
- Use in-task chat to house questions and conversations around updates asynchronously (with a record you can return to later)
- Start with a standardized template and then customize to meet your needs with additional questions or extra attributes
What are standups?
Standups bring your whole team together to discuss what everyone’s working on. Each team member in attendance gives an update on what projects and tasks they’re focused on, and most importantly, if there are any blockers holding up their progress.
Standups offer a great opportunity to give leadership an overview of projects being kicked off, what’s in-progress, and what you’re wrapping up. But they are also a streamlined way to eliminate any blockers, identify dependencies and overlaps ahead of time, and let your team members know how they can support your work. Since many teams have people working together to tackle larger projects, these meetings help facilitate smoother collaboration and eliminate lag-time.
The more visibility between teams, the better. Standup meetings are a huge part of how you increase cross-team visibility and collaboration, but what if your remote team could soak up all the benefits of standups without spending tons of time in synchronous meetings?
Who is this standup template for?
This standup template is designed for all teams: engineering, marketing, product, design, and more. It works for teams of all sizes, too!
How do I plan effective asynchronous standup check-ins?
Running an effective standup keeps everyone on your remote team aligned and up-to-date on projects and progress — here’s how you can help streamline the process and keep standups organized (and asynchronous).
- Establish the questions each team member should answer in their updates.
The first step to a more effective standup meeting is setting the questions you’d like everyone to answer. Typically, a standup update covers three things: what work you completed last week, what you’re working on this week, and if there’s anything blocking your progress. With this standup template, the task description for each team member includes those three questions so it’s easy to copy and paste into the chat.
- Create one organized spot for everyone to answer those questions, and decide on a frequency.
In this standup template, every team member has a task assigned to them (that’s where those questions live in the description). Once your team member fills out their updates and marks the task complete, it’ll automatically create a new task for you at the interval you choose: daily, weekly, or even further apart. It’s up to you!
- Keep conversations on-topic and streamlined with asynchronous task updates.
No one wants to spend ages in meetings, especially when conversations only apply to a handful of team members. Keep conversations about blockers and any questions about progress updates asynchronous with real-time in-task chat (emojis, file uploads, and read receipts included). To save even more time, in Height, you can link the tasks you’re working on to the standup task so you don’t have to fill things out manually.
How do I start using this standup template now?
Getting started is easy — all you have to do is click “Try in Height”. If you don’t have a Height account yet, you’ll be prompted to create your free account (it’ll only take a minute or two).
Once you’re all set up, bringing your team together in the standup list is as easy as creating a task for each team member with their name and assigning it to them.