A conversation about using the board to drive focus and better standups. Practical contrasts between card-centered and person-centered status updates. How executive meetings can use boards to expose misalignment, side projects, and accountability gaps. Tips for building the habit and handling resistance to change.
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volunteer_activism ADVICE
Bring Cards To The Stand-Up
Do make the cards come to the stand-up rather than asking everyone what they're doing.
Walking the board surfaces blockers, orphaned prioritized work, and wasted activity that a people-focused status update misses.
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Stop Asking What People Are Doing
Avoid asking open-ended status questions like "What are you doing?" in stand-ups.
Those questions turn meetings into long status sessions and hide orphaned priorities and blockers that a card-focused review would reveal.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Urgent Project That No One Touched
Douglas recalled a project everyone thought was urgent but no one was actually working on.
The stand-up sounded productive, yet later someone asked, "Where's the number?" and they discovered the priority was orphaned.
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Are you talking about what you’re working on or what you should be working on? On this episode of Troubleshooting Agile, Squirrel and Jeffrey discuss “walking the board,” with real world examples of organisations doing it well - and not not so well, and why you need to bring the cards to the board, not the people.
SHOW LINKS:
- Walking the board: https://www.audiodog.co.uk/blog/2017/12/10/better-stand-up-by-walking-the-board/
- Cards come to the standup: http://www.exampler.com/blog/2007/11/06/latour-3-anthrax-and-standups/
- CITCON Helsinki: https://citconf.com/helsinki2026/
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You'll find free videos and practice material, plus our book Agile Conversations, at agileconversations.com
And we'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show: email us at info@agileconversations.com
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About Your Hosts
Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick joined forces at TIM Group in 2013, where they studied and practised the art of management through difficult conversations. Over a decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing profitable organisations through better communication.
Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, and he's helped over 300 companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: douglassquirrel.com/index.html
Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, and is an accomplished author and speaker. You can connect with him here: www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/
Troubleshooting Agile 
