Problem: Without regular check-ins, team members may feel out of sync and miss important updates.

Solution: Hold a short daily meeting where everyone shares their progress and any challenges, keeping the team connected and on track.

Introduction:

Daily standups/lineups sound like a pain in the ass. And they are. But they’re also critical on remote teams. Lineups make sure teams are on the same page. They foster accountability. They help people move fast to reach shared goals.

Brevity matters here. Keep these meetings to 20 minutes or less. For longer conversations, have people touch base with each other.

Tools:

• Begin lineups by reinforcing the mission statement and core values.
• The Order:
• Start to use a shared vocabulary with “insider” values. It should almost feel like a secret language.
• Share a real-life example of a teammate embodying organizational values, ideally through stories of outstanding service. Focus on detail, customer obsession, consistency, fast decisions, or similar themes.
• Three Essential Questions: Each team member answers three core questions:
• What did you do yesterday to help the team finish?
• What will you do today to help the team finish?
• Are there any obstacles preventing you or the team from achieving your goal?
• Leaders should actively participate in daily lineups to demonstrate commitment to the practice. You are not better than this.
• Hold the standup at the same time every day to create a rhythm, ensuring that all team members are present. The goal is to establish a regular cadence or "heartbeat" for the team.
• Keep the meeting under 20 minutes. It should be a quick, direct check-in, allowing any additional discussions to happen outside of this time.
• Everyone in the standup should actively contribute. To encourage this, team members stand up to promote engagement and prevent the meeting from dragging on.
• If they are getting too long, coach the team to have shorter updates, or make the group smaller.
• At the beginning, teammembers will use this to make sure everyone knows how great they are. Allow this for a while, but coach it out if it doesn’t settle on it’s own in the first few weeks. These meetings should be about executional priorities, not bragging.