Has this gone main-stream? I mean really!--the front page of the WSJ? Isn't there the Euro-crises or something to take up that valuable real estate?
But no, we learn this bit:
Holding meetings standing up isn't new. Some military leaders did it during World War I, according to Allen Bluedorn, a business professor at the University of Missouri.
But then reporter Rachel Emma Sliverman goes on to explain the agile phenomenon and the agilists adoption of the stand-up meeting.
And, there's some interesting metrics that comport intuitively with what you would imagine:
.... a study back in 1998 that found that standing meetings were about a third shorter than sitting meetings and the quality of decision-making was about the same.
And, we learn the humorous stuff, like:
- Playing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" to keep the pace up
- Passing around a 10 pound bowling ball
- Passing around a rubber chicken
- Charging a nominal fee for tardiness or verbosity
Office outfitters are responding by designing work spaces with standing sessions in mind. Furniture maker Steelcase Inc.'s Turnstone division, for example, recently introduced the "Big Table," a large standing-height table designed for quick meetings.
And then of course, the ultimate stand-up is no gathering at all; it's a variant of the traditional "sit-down"
At Freshbooks.com, a Toronto-based company that makes online accounting software, teams try to do daily 10 a.m. stand-ups. But on days when everyone is too swamped to gather around the company Ping-Pong table, team members will shout out their status updates from their desks, which are arranged in a circle.
They call those meetings "sit-downs."
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