Introduction
The blockers always arrive together
If you have children, you’ll know the feeling.
The school year is coming to an end and, somehow, every important reminder arrives in the final few days. Mufti day. A bottle for the tombola. A jam jar for the school fete. Two pounds for the raffle. A costume. Something else that was apparently mentioned weeks ago.
Individually, none of these are difficult. Together, they suddenly become overwhelming. Watch the latest Kitchen Table Product Manager video as Louise learns about a range of last-minute blockers.
Sound familiar?
A daily stand-up is supposed to surface blockers before they become bigger problems.
What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? Do you have any blockers?
The goal isn’t simply to identify issues. It’s to uncover them early enough that someone can help remove them before they slow the whole team down.
Problems become easier when they’re shared
Imagine if each of those school requests had come up one at a time.
Finding a pair of shorts is easy.
Buying a bottle for the tombola is easy.
Finding an empty jam jar is easy.
It’s only when eight blockers appear in the same conversation that everything starts to feel chaotic.
The same thing happens in product development. Small dependencies, unanswered questions and missing decisions are usually manageable on their own. Left too long, they combine into something much bigger.
Stand-ups are about solutions
One of the biggest misconceptions about stand-ups is that they’re simply status meetings. They’re not.
A blocker isn’t an admission of failure. It’s an invitation for the team to help. Someone might have the answer. Someone might remove a dependency. Someone may simply know who to speak to.
The earlier those conversations happen, the easier they are to resolve.
Surface blockers early
Great product teams don’t wait until the last minute to reveal what’s getting in their way.
They create an environment where blockers are raised early, discussed openly and solved together.
That’s the real lesson from the end of term. One blocker is easy. Eight blockers all at once makes for a very stressful morning.
Or, to put it another way, don’t wait until stand-up to remember you need a jam jar, a tree costume and a bottle of wine.
