This One Meeting is Guaranteed to Increase Effective Communication
About five years ago, we were introduced to “daily huddle” at a StyleBlueprint all-team meeting. A daily huddle is a 15-minute morning meeting in which each team member shares their top tasks from the day prior, their top tasks for today, and one main priority for the day.
Unsurprisingly, many team members were not immediately on board and raised concerns over losing time that could be dedicated elsewhere.
Within weeks, those team members changed their tune. By beginning the day with individual priorities, many side conversations became unnecessary, and time was actually saved. Daily huddle became key to more effective communication, increased productivity, and less confusion.
Here’s Why:
- A standing morning meeting allows every team member to be on the same page.
- Communication, especially within a remote company, is tough, and your message can (and will) become more and more confusing as it makes its way through the company grapevine. Bringing the team together for a brief morning check-in allows information to move through your organization quickly and accurately. It is also a great platform for all-company updates and announcements.
- Employees will have a better understanding of their team members’ workload and priorities.
- Daily huddle can give managers the opportunity to see what their team members are focused on that day; it can offer updates on tasks multiple team members are working on together, and it can highlight when an employee may be overloaded.
- You will save time.
- How often do you find yourself looking for an update on a project, searching through Google Drive or your company’s project management platform, reaching out to multiple team members, conducting impromptu Zooms, and just generally wasting time seeking answers? Daily huddle will help. Have a specific, quick question that involves multiple departments? Ask during daily huddle. You will quickly see how this meeting saves time and frustration down the road.
Here’s What We’ve Learned:
- Put a limit on the number of top tasks your team is sharing.
- During our daily huddle, we share our top three tasks from the day prior, top five tasks for that day, and one top priority to be completed by end of day. To allow this process to move quickly, have one team member start out by sharing their top tasks from yesterday and top tasks for today. Then, have them call on another team member to go next. This continues until everyone has shared top tasks from both yesterday and today. Then start again, following the same order, allowing everyone to share their top priority for the day.
- Don’t let outside discussion go on for too long.
- Problem-solving is bound to come up during daily huddle and can be immensely helpful if the solution can be identified quickly — but if the issue requires a longer discussion, have the team members involved meet separately.
- Add a “cheers” to the end of your daily huddle.
- Put one team member in charge of ending huddle each day with a “cheers.” This can be an exciting company accomplishment, an acknowledgment of an individual or departmental win, a birthday announcement, a work anniversary, etc. Never underestimate how starting each morning on a positive note can affect the team.
Bailey Torkelson is StyleBlueprint’s Marketing Manager.