StandupTime Helps Make Regular Status Meetings Fast and Efficient
The worst thing about “status” meetings is that they can turn into “scheduling” sessions — when a quick meeting to keep everyone on the same page drags on to the point where you can do the work you are sitting and talking about. StandupTime is a tool that can simplify the process, especially if you need to conduct these meetings.
Once you sign up, you can link your coworkers, create a team calendar, and even receive (and send) notifications to everyone on the team when someone completes something important, is late or gets stuck, or there is a general Update. Best of all, StandupTime can collect all these updates and events and then combine them into a status email that is sent to everyone on the team.
StandupTime does all of this without human input, which gives you the freedom to do real work, or if you’re a project manager, manage the project instead of spending all day making sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing. If you have a “big board” or dashboard somewhere, StandupTime even has a “TV Mode” that allows you to display a live image on a large screen. If your team uses Hipchat or Slack for communication, they can integrate with these services to send project notifications to your team or project channel.
StandupTime is designed for entire teams (and priced accordingly), but there is a free account option for people holding their own meetings or just wanting to try the service to see if it will be useful for them and the people. they work with. The free account lacks Slack / Hipchat integration and the ability to have “observers” (people who don’t interact with the project, but can watch and receive updates), but everything else. If you’re working on an open source project, they’ll even find you a paid account for your team.