Build fluency in the language of daily standups and async status updates.
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At standup, a dev gives a quick summary of yesterday's work, today's plan, and blockers. What format is this?
The classic three-question standup format covers what was done, what's planned, and any blockers, keeping updates brief and structured. It originated from Scrum's daily standup ritual. Many teams now do this asynchronously in text rather than live.
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During a design review, a distributed team posts standup updates in a channel instead of meeting live. What is this practice called?
An async standup replaces the live daily meeting with written updates posted whenever convenient for each contributor, useful across time zones. It trades real-time discussion for flexibility and written record-keeping. Many remote/distributed teams prefer this format.
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In a code review discussion, a dev flags they're stuck waiting on someone else's PR to merge. What should they call this in their update?
A blocker is anything preventing forward progress, such as waiting on a dependency, review, or external decision. Naming blockers explicitly in updates helps teammates or leads intervene quickly. This is one of the three core elements of standard standup formats.
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An incident report shows a standup ran long because people debugged a bug live instead of just reporting status. What should that discussion be moved to?
A parking lot is where topics needing deeper discussion get deferred to a separate follow-up conversation, keeping the standup itself brief. This preserves the meeting's time-boxed purpose as a status sync, not a working session. It's a common facilitation technique for keeping standups efficient.
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During a PR review, a teammate wants to know what a colleague is generally responsible for this sprint without daily detail. What artifact answers this?
A sprint board (or task tracker) shows ongoing assigned work at a glance, complementing daily standups which focus on short-term status and blockers. Standups convey nuance and blockers; the board conveys overall ownership and progress. Together they give both a snapshot and a status narrative.