The word “Collaboration” is getting close to its buzzword critical mass. If left unchecked for a few more months of headlines like “You’ll Never Imagine What Your Team Can Do With This Collaboration Tool!” the creative community might just implode upon itself.
That being said, the basic principles of collaboration are still extremely useful, especially here at MilesHerndon. It’s one thing for a team of designers to get together to tackle a client’s project, but that isn’t where the collaboration ends at our office.
Enter the morning Stand Up meeting. This ritual was brought over by the Redwall team before we joined forces with Miles Design, but the feedback has been positive no matter where we came from. Every morning, we all congregate and literally circle-up so we can discuss what we’re working on that day. Rules of the Stand Up meeting are as follows:
- 8:45AM, don’t be late. (Unless you’re getting coffee or in a meeting or sick. Then you can be late.)
- Stand Up. Pretty explanatory.
- Keep your daily rundown under a minute. (Or two, two and a half tops. Just be quick about it, we’ve got work to do man.)
- Let team members know if you need their help. (Don’t spring surprise deadlines on us man. Not cool.)
- Give us jazz-hands to say “I’m done.” (Jazz-hands with feeling. Don’t just wave hello.)
Not that we need another reason to get in each other’s business. If you’ve visited MilesHerndon HQ lately, you’ve already seen how cramped cozy we are with each other. Having Stand Up meeting every morning solidifies the process. However, that doesn’t mean that it all has to be professional and serious. People drag themselves in after they grab their coffee, jokes are made across the room when someone else says something funny and someone forgets the Jazz-hands every. single. morning. We keep it short, sweet and most importantly: authentic.
If the morning Stand Up meeting doesn’t feel like something your team would do of their own free will, it’s bound to fail. Starting a habit is one of the hardest things for an individual person to do, let alone a group of people. Keeping it light hearted and fun, but still productive is the way to go. I get to see who is really a morning person and who just said that in their interview. You can tell when someone is excited about a project, but also when someone is stressed or even overwhelmed. It took some time for every member of the team to feel comfortable enough to let their personality come through in these morning meetings, but once they did everyone saw the benefits.
This is where that different view of collaboration comes to mind. Instead of designers thinking that they can only help other designers with design projects, websites that developers are working on now trigger thoughts of “Maybe I’ll see what he’s working on there.” Workflow within the agency becomes transparent and industrious creatives will take the initiative to insert themselves where they think they can help to make your project better. And in the end, better work is what we’re all about at MilesHerndon.
I’d encourage any agency looking to make work a little more personal to look at morning Stand Up meetings. Just remember: keep it short, keep it simple and make it yours.
If you’re interested in learning more about our culture, or you want to come join our standup meetings permanently, check out our careers page!
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