In the door, 9:25. Yes, we got a fresh supply of Earl Grey tea, my favorite. I'm on time for the 9:30 Stand-Up.

This is a two-part meeting. First part, general: anything left over from last week? Client coming this week? What's up for each team today, rest of week? 15–30 minutes; everyone literally stands, in The Pit – no walls, no doors, no cubes. This is the Anti-Meeting Person's meeting: really efficient, gets you heading in the right direction and back to programming quickly.

Okay. We break out to team design meetings. My team: two pairs of developers, one business analyst. We prioritize the client's stories for the next two weeks, talk about functionality, design, testing.

We decide to spike the first story because there's just too much we don't know. Two of us actually start working on it to get a feel, see what's possible. Back to the team. Now we get granular about who's going to do what. Everybody has a say – you don't just get stuck with an assignment.

I just love this, getting mindshare. Helps everyone see the forest for the trees.