Rhythm · Searching to Growing
Starting the day well
Every morning you pick three things that have to get done today, and if you lead a team you hold a fifteen-minute daily start where everyone says where they're stuck.
Does this sound familiar?
- At five o'clock you've worked all day, and the one thing that had to get done today is still sitting there.
- You open your email for a quick look, and an hour later you're still replying.
- On Thursday you hear that a colleague has been waiting on an answer from you since Monday.
- Your daily start began as ten minutes and now runs to forty-five minutes, including a discussion about one customer.
- Every morning everyone says what they're going to do, but nobody says when they can't get it done.
Who it's for, and when
The first part is for anyone who finds their day being taken from them, even in the early phases. The second part is for anyone leading a team whose people no longer talk to each other without being prompted. A daily start only makes sense once the weekly rhythm is in place; before that, it's just going through the motions.
The model
This lesson has two parts. The first is for everyone: every morning you pick three things that have to get done today, and you say with a colour how you're doing. The second is for anyone leading a team: a fifteen-minute daily start where everyone says where they're stuck.
You pick your three before you open your email. If you don't pick, you work through the day in the order things come in. You choose them from what's on your board this week; how you fill that board is in the lesson Planning in weeks. Then you check in: Good, Needs attention or Not good, with a short sentence if you like.
The daily start is Harnish's daily huddle. Same time every day, standing up or online with cameras on, fifteen minutes at most, and the same order every day. The most important part is the question of where you're stuck. You can read what someone's going to do, but you only hear that they're waiting on a customer, a colleague or you if you ask. The daily start doesn't solve anything. Whoever's stuck sorts it out straight afterwards with the person who can help.
The daily start belongs to the team. The team leader keeps an eye on the time and the order, and who leads it can rotate. Whoever raises a problem sets up the follow-up conversation themselves; the founder doesn't solve it there and then in front of the group. In Searching and Proving you see each other all day, and your own top 3 is enough. In Growing every team has its own daily start.
Verne Harnish described the daily huddle in Mastering the Rockefeller Habits (2002) and expanded on it in the chapter on meeting rhythm in Scaling Up (2014). Asking how you're doing, with a colour, is something Boldcaster added.
Part 1, for everyone: your top 3
No more than three things that can get done today. If something won't fit in a day, make it smaller until part of it can be finished today. Anything else on your mind goes in the brain dump, so it's out of your head.
Part 1, for everyone: how are you doing
Good, Needs attention or Not good. That way your manager also hears how you're doing, not only how your work is going. The screen tells you who can see your check-in.
Part 2, for whoever leads: what's on today
Briefly, per person: my three for today and my colour. Then anything coming up that everyone needs to know: a customer visiting, a delivery, someone off tomorrow. If your company has a number that moves every day, like orders or faults, mention it at the start. Don't discuss it, just say it.
Part 2, for whoever leads: where are you stuck
One sentence per person: I'm stuck on this, and I need that person. Explanations and solutions go on the parking list: who talks to whom, straight after the daily start.
Pitfalls
A daily start before the week is in place
Without a weekly board, nobody has anything to pick their three from, and the daily start turns into a round of reading out diaries. Start with the week, and add the daily start once the team's people no longer talk to each other without being prompted.
Only when the boss is there
A daily start that sometimes doesn't happen is gone within a month. Same time, even when you're not there. Someone else leads it instead.
Always green
If everyone says Good every day, the colour has become a formality. Go first: say so when your day isn't good. Then others will feel safe to say it too.
Watch and read
Five tips for the huddle the way Scaling Up means it: short, the same agenda every day, with the question of where you're stuck.
Watch on YouTubeA real morning huddle at the company Herold helped scale up as COO, using the approach he learned from Harnish: you see how short and fixed the rhythm is.
Watch on YouTubeIn Dutch: a daily start of fifteen minutes at most, standing at the board, and tips for keeping it that way.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
In Dutch: a facilitator who brought in a daily start with more than a hundred teams, on what worked and what didn't. For anyone about to introduce one.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It...and Why the Rest Don't
Verne Harnish · 2014 · ISBN 9780986019593
The chapter on meeting rhythm describes the daily huddle: fifteen minutes, the same parts every day, with the question of where you're stuck at its heart. Also published in Dutch as Scaling up: de groeiformule (Business Contact, 2016).
View the bookApply it
- 1
Everyone: pick your three before you open your email
Five minutes. From what's on your board this week, pick what has to get done today, three things at most. If something's left over every day, you're picking too many or too big.
- 2
Everyone: check in with a colour
Good, Needs attention or Not good. A sentence helps if it isn't Good. Pick the colour that's true, even if that's Not good.
- 3
Whoever leads: set a fixed time and place
For example, every day at half past eight, standing at the board or online. Don't move it. Anyone who isn't there misses it; the daily start doesn't wait.
- 4
Whoever leads: park every problem with a name
When a problem comes up, ask who's picking it up with whom, straight afterwards. Whoever raised it sets up that conversation. Then move on to the next person.
- 5
Whoever leads: hand over the lead
After a few weeks, let someone else lead the daily start, a different person each week. Then it keeps going when you're not there, and it belongs to the team.
Examples
Ready to use: your own morning in five minutes
Before you open your email: 1. Look at your board for this week: what has to get done today? 2. Put three things at most in your top 3. Too big? Write down the part that can be finished today. 3. Put the rest in the brain dump. 4. Pick your colour, with a sentence if it isn't Good. 5. Start on the first of your three.
Ready to use: the agenda for a fifteen-minute daily start
Who: the team, including anyone working from home. The team leader leads, or whoever's turn it is this week. Ready beforehand: everyone has set their top 3 and their colour. Whoever tracks the number of the day has it to hand. 0 to 1 minute: the number of the day, just say it. 1 to 11 minutes: everyone in turn, a minute at most: my three for today, my colour, where I'm stuck. 11 to 13 minutes: anything coming up that everyone needs to know. 13 to 15 minutes: read the parking list back: who talks to whom, straight after the daily start. At the end it's settled: whoever was stuck knows who they're sorting it out with today. Whoever said Needs attention or Not good gets a quick word in private with the leader. What the leader says when someone starts explaining: 'Good point, you two pick that up afterwards. Who's next?'
An installation company
At half past seven the engineers stand by the van for ten minutes. Everyone names their jobs for today and what they're missing. One engineer is missing a part; the planner sorts it out straight afterwards, before the van leaves. The planner leads the daily start, not the managing director.
A managing director who picks too much every day
His top 3 has five things in it every day, and every evening one of them is left over. He goes back to three and makes each one smaller: 'pricing breakdown for the quote' instead of 'quote for new customer'. After two weeks he gets his three done almost every day.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- Go to Today. On Today you pick My top 3 for today from This week or your Brain dump, and under How are you doing today? you choose Good, Needs attention or Not good. Whoever leads the daily start opens the Stand-up and uses it to go through each person's top 3 and colour. Whether you can see a colleague's colour depends on what the owner has set in Settings, under Way of working.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
7 situations. You need 6 of 7 right. You can try again at any time.
1.Your daily start now takes forty minutes, because every day people carry on talking about a few customers. What do you do?
2.A colleague puts five or six things in his top 3 every morning, and something's left over every day. What's the best advice?
3.In the daily start, an employee says his day isn't good. How do you respond?
4.You're at a trade fair for two days. What do you agree about the daily start?
5.For three months everyone has picked Good every day. Even so, projects are running late. What does that tell you?
6.You work with two colleagues at one table and there's no fixed weekly slot yet. A coach recommends holding a daily start. What do you do first?
7.An account manager opens his email at eight and picks his top 3 at ten. Every day the most important thing is left undone. What do you tell him?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Planning in weeks · You start every week with a week focus and a board holding only what can get done, and on Friday you close it with a decision on every card that's still open.
- Protecting your time · You put your most important work in fixed blocks in your calendar, and you check email and chat at times you choose.
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