How to use Google Hangouts to Easily Host Your Daily Standup

If you have a distributed team or can’t get a regular meeting space in your workplace, online video conferencing may be your next best alternative for a Scrum team’s daily standup. While I always advocate for co-located teams with a dedicated meeting place for standups, I realize that this isn’t always feasible.

You’re probably well aware that it often takes a few valuable minutes to corral everyone together using Skype, Google Hangouts, or other online video conference tools. This can really eat into the efficiencies of a 15-minute daily meeting. I really like Sqwiggle, but it is limited to four active video callers at any given time. Google Hangouts supports up to 10 users and works relatively well, but sometimes it’s a hassle to get everyone in the same chat at the same time. (Have more than 10 people in your Scrum team? Please consider splitting that team apart for optimal performance.) Never fear: simple instructions follow. This works as of Feburary 28th, 2014.

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