What?

The idea of the 1,2,3 is simple.?I didn’t invent it – someone mentioned it’s used at maybe… npm? But I couldn’t find anything about it so on our team we defined it as this:

1. What I must get done today.
2. What I’m hopeful of.
3. What I’m filling in the gaps with.

Why?

I’ve never found standups that good a way to find and keep track of information. People are prone to adding so much detail that I lose track of the high level task, and I find it harder to tell if things are dragging on for longer than they should be. Also, it’s easier to be swayed by someone’s personal charisma and excitement about the progress of the project. With remote teams, video chat and timezones make standups even more annoying.

When?

I really believe in starting the day with some kind of intention around what I plan to achieve today – and the 123 is about what we planned to do, not what we achieved. So: at the start of the day.

Who?

Anyone who is part of the team. I find it mainly useful for engineering, but there’s no reason not to include Product / Design.

I thought as a manager that mine wasn’t necessarily that meaningful, and was very repetitive around 1:1s, code reviews etc. However, I still participated because otherwise it could seem like people reporting their activities to me rather than as a way we were accountable to each other. Generally I took the approach that my activities might not be that interesting to people on the team, but they were still very welcome to know what they were.