Lab standup sessions

A simple system, called “standup”, helps reflect and to communicate work priorities, regularly. This “standup” system is adapted from the agile software movement. There are many versions of it adapted to what a group of people working together actually find useful.

In the Wallace lab we used standups extensively during remote work and shift system of COVID-19 and lockdown, as described on this page. It is not currently (2023) a regular habit in the lab.

COVID-era standup on slack guidelines

At roughly 10am Monday/Wednesday/Friday, everyone posts one short message on the #standup202x channel on slack, containing:

1. What did I do or achieve recently?
2. What will I prioritize next?
3. What obstacles are impeding my progress?

The idea is of a lightweight and useful way for everyone to reflect on progress, set priorities, and highlight obstacles, communicated around the lab. That means that everyone has some idea of what you are up to day to day, and we can have more helpful conversations when we meet. The PI finds standups even more useful when he is away, as they help catching up with what everyone has been up to when he returns.

We have also found standups on slack useful as an informal “work diary”, as a reminder of what we did over the last few weeks, what we were stuck on, what problems we solved.

Interpret “recently” and “next” to cover 1-2 days

“Recently” is shorthand here for “in the recent past since the last standup”. It should include things that you have done or achieved already. If you did something earlier the same day that you post your standup, that counts as “recently”.

“Next” is shorthand for “in the near future until the next standup”. It should include things that you intend to prioritize and do next. The point about doing standup in the morning (suggested 10am), is to articulate goals for the day(s) ahead. For example, Edward sometimes write up his standup at the end of the day before, before closing the computer, and then reviews and posts in the morning.

“Obstacles” can be things you got stuck on recently, expect to be stuck on next, or are worried about getting stuck on in the coming weeks. Obstacles could be big or small sticking points, or just be sources of uncertainty.

Some example standup posts

Here are some examples, that are lightly edited from real standup posts during 2020-1.

1. Recently: I learned to use the ggtree R package to plot phylogenetic trees, and constructed new trees for Ssd1 homologs.
2. Next: I want to add annotations of sequence features of Ssd1 homologs to the figure of the tree.
3. Obstacles: I also did a bigger tree of more distantly-related proteins in the Ssd1 family, and I’m not sure how to interpret it.

1. Recently: preparing for Carpentries training (reading course info, completing pre-course questionnaires etc).
2. Next: Going through Carpentries lesson (R for Reproducible Scientific Analyses) and selecting an episode to use in the training workshop; Riboviz Meeting.
3. Obstacles: Not getting sidetracked by too many other tasks/emails/planning other work so I can focus on prep for the course and get the most out of it.

1. Recently: Prepared a plan for experiments this week.
2. Next: Lab work to create 3 fluorescently-tagged strains; running multiple PCRs and agarose gels and preparing for Gibson assembly and transformations tomorrow.
3. Obstacles: The printer at Waddington seems to never work when I need it to - or at all, really.

1. Recently: Rewrote the beginning of the results section of the paper that we are writing about 3’UTRs.
2. Next: Rewrite the rest of the results section of the 3’UTR paper. Review a pull request of edits on the introduction.
3. Obstacles: we are struggling with the terminology about how to describe the main point of the paper. We haven’t yet found the right words to describe the main distinction that we need to make.

Note that these examples are all short. It is helpful to keep the messages short, which means articulating only one or two priorities for each standup period.

SMART goals are helpful goals

SMART goals are a useful tool: are your goals Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Timebound? “Next” posts are most helpful if they are SMART.

For example, the goal “reading papers” is not SMART. The goal “read Ballou et al 2020 paper on Ssd1 evolution” is specific, and perhaps realistic, but not measurable. The goal “read Ballou et al 2020 paper on Ssd1 evolution and make 1 page of notes on how to apply the methods in figure 1 to my protein of interest” is SMARTer.

More explanation in a nice NIH blogpost on using SMART goals to make scientific progress. There’s another account of SMART goals from a longer term perspective, in the Science magazine careers section.

The point is to use standup to talk about goals, about priorities that you want to do next, that could be intended to achieve larger goals, not as a list of tasks.

Obstacles are real and talking about them is helpful

The “obstacles” section is very useful: often someone else in the lab will notice and be able to help. There are lots of kinds of obstacles that everyone faces including:

• logistical, e.g. I don’t know where something is in the lab, I don’t know if we have reagent x, I am waiting for equipment y to arrive
• skills, e.g. I don’t know how to use software package x, I’m not sure how to pipette viscous liquid y
• knowledge, e.g. I don’t know which gene to use as a marker for stress x, I don’t understand which statistical model to use for data y
• everyday failures, e.g. my PCR keeps failing and I don’t know why, my cells keep dying, my jobs submitted to the cluster aren’t running, I just keep failing to write that paragraph

Everyone in the lab faces obstacles every week. If you don’t think you have any obstacles, think harder towards the next one that you will face, and write something.

More ideas on standups

Find more ideas for how to make standups most useful from Martin Fowler’s blogpost, “Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings”.

Who participates in standups?

Most people in the lab, including the PI, do standups.

For project students (honours, MSc, PhD rotation), standups are compulsory because they are so helpful. For PhD students and postdocs who are co-supervising project students, standups are near-compulsory, because it helps the student as well.

For everyone else, participation in standups is strongly encouraged, again because it is so helpful.

Standup and remote working

In 2020-21 we had a problem of limited lab access in shifts, and much of the lab working from home. This creates difficulties with structuring time (because we aren’t going to work at regular hours) and in communication (because we aren’t in the same place and able to have those useful little conversations).

This kind of communication is easier when we were in the lab and office, having little chats over coffee and so on. We started trying to make up for it using these standups on slack. Then we found it valuable for setting priorities, encouraging teamwork, and tracking progress. We continued standups for a while return to the office.

Conclusion

Standup is a useful tool and takes very little time.