Lean methodology
Daily standups
Briefly bring your team together daily to discuss performance, bottlenecks, and priorities, and to agree on concrete actions.
A daily standup (dagstart) is a brief, structured meeting in which a team discusses performance, bottlenecks, and priorities for the workday or shift. This approach aligns with daily management within Lean and the Toyota Production System, where making deviations visible and making immediate adjustments are central. The goal is not to hold longer meetings, but to ensure together that everyone knows what is going on, what requires attention, and who is taking action.
In production and logistics, a daily standup usually takes place at the start of a workday or shift, often around a visual team board. In about ten to fifteen minutes, the team reviews the previous period and looks ahead to the upcoming tasks. Topics include, for example, safety, quality, delivery reliability, staffing, and backlog. Deviations are translated into concrete actions with an assigned owner and an agreed-upon follow-up time. Issues requiring further investigation are addressed outside the daily standup; urgent risks do not wait for the next meeting.
Properly implemented daily standups provide employees with clarity regarding goals, priorities, and interdependencies. Bottlenecks surface sooner, enabling teams to adjust more quickly and departments to align better. By tracking actions visibly, ownership and confidence that problems are actually being tackled grow. The result is greater calm and control in daily operations, provided the daily standup leads to action and does not remain limited to simply sharing figures.
What is Daily standups?
A daily stand-up is a short, structured team meeting at the start of the workday or shift, focused on reviewing progress, looking ahead, and making adjustments.
When do you use it?
Use a set time and an up-to-date team board to discuss safety, quality, delivery, staffing, and workload. Assign actions to an owner and agree on a follow-up time.
What are the benefits?
Clear priorities, faster identification of issues, and better alignment within the team. Consistent follow-up helps minimize disruptions and maintain improvements.