How long should a daily huddle be?

Ten to fifteen minutes, standing. The board keeps it short by fixing the order: attendance, numbers, wins, plan, issues. Anything that needs discussion gets an owner and a time later in the day.

Which KPIs belong on a huddle board?

Three to five that the team can move during the shift: output against plan, first pass yield, downtime, a safety measure. Monthly financials belong on the tier 3 board, not here.

Why put wins on the board?

A huddle that only lists problems becomes a meeting people dread. A win a day, with a name on it, keeps the team coming and shows what good looks like.

Daily huddle board or SQCDP tier board?

The huddle board is built around the meeting: attendance, numbers, wins, plan. The SQCDP board is built around the pillars and shows the month day by day. Teams new to daily management usually start with the huddle board and move to SQCDP once the KPIs and the rules for red are settled.

Who owns the huddle board?

The team leader runs the meeting and keeps the board current, but each KPI has an owner who reports it, and the wins should come from the team.

Do office teams need one?

Yes, in the same shape: who is in, yesterday's numbers such as orders processed or tickets closed, a win, today's priorities. The numbers change; the four questions do not.

Lean Studio board · Daily management

Daily Huddle Board

In one sentence

A daily huddle board is the fixed agenda for a team's daily stand-up drawn as a board: attendance, yesterday's KPIs against target, yesterday's wins and today's plan, with a strip for issues the team cannot solve in the meeting.

A daily huddle board is the agenda for a ten-minute stand-up, drawn as a board: who is here, how yesterday went against the numbers, what went well, and what today has to deliver. It keeps the meeting to the same four questions every day, which is what makes it short.

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When to use it

When to use the Daily Huddle Board

At the start of every shift for a team of five to fifteen people.
When stand-ups drift past fifteen minutes or turn into problem-solving sessions.
For teams that are new to daily management and need a simple board before a full SQCDP board.
In offices and support teams as well as on the line.

What is on the board

1
Attendance
Who is in, who is out, and the cover for anyone missing.
2
KPIs
Three to five numbers from yesterday against target, from a Scorecard or Single Data widget.
3
Yesterday's wins
What went well and who did it, so the meeting is not only about problems.
4
Today's plan
The jobs, the priorities and the risks for the shift.
5
Issues raised
Stickies for anything the team cannot fix in the huddle.

Running it

How to run a Daily Huddle Board session

1
Same time, same spot, every shift; the team leader runs it, the whole team stands, 10 to 15 minutes. Start on time even if people are missing.
2
Attendance first: who is in, who is out, who covers. This is the moment to spot a station with nobody qualified for it.
3
Yesterday's numbers against target, three to five of them, read by whoever owns each. Say the number, say red or green, no discussion yet.
4
One win from yesterday with a name on it. Thirty seconds.
5
Today's plan: the order of jobs, the risks, anything unusual such as a trial or maintenance. Ask 'what will stop us?'
6
Issues: anything raised that cannot be settled now gets an owner and a time later today, or goes to the 3C board or up to tier 2.
7
Good output: everyone knows the plan, every red has a name, and the meeting ended on time.

Worked example · sample data

Worked example

The sample huddle has nine of ten people in: A. Kaur is out and Line 3 is covering station 2. Yesterday's numbers: output 1,120 against a plan of 1,150, first pass yield 97.8% against a target of 97%, downtime 34 minutes against a limit of 30. Two greens, two reds, and the downtime and the output shortfall are probably the same event. The win: a changeover on press 2 in 29 minutes, a first for the line, and no safety observations left open. Today's plan is to run order 4471 then 4480, trial the new label roll holder, and give saw 3 to maintenance at 13:00. The team leader asked what would stop them; the answer was saw 3 if maintenance ran long, so packing was sequenced before 13:00 and the huddle closed at eleven minutes.

The board shown at the top of this page, read through. Invented data, not a customer.

Common mistakes

Letting it become a problem-solving meeting. Name it, own it, take it offline.
KPIs the team cannot move during a shift. Monthly cost per unit belongs at tier 3.
Skipping the win when the day was bad. That is the day it matters most.
Reading numbers from a printout the team leader filled in alone. Owners report their own KPI.
Ending without a plan. The last thing said should be what the shift will do.

How it works in Lean Studio

1
Start from the Daily Huddle Board template: four panels for attendance, KPIs, wins and plan, with a strip for issues.
2
Move a sticky per person into the attendance panel, enter yesterday's numbers, and add stickies for wins and today's priorities.
3
Give each issue sticky an owner before the huddle ends and move it to a 3C or action tracker board if it will take longer than a day.
4
Save the finished board to My templates so the next team starts from your version.

Lean Studio boards are drawn with stickies, text, shapes (rectangle, rounded rectangle, ellipse, diamond), arrows and charts, and any board can carry the 15 data widgets, from a scorecard to a kanban. See all widgets and boards.

Also in LeanSuite

Where it goes next in LeanSuite

LeanSuite runs tiered meetings on Lean Studio boards: each huddle enters its KPIs, assigns actions and escalates problems on one live screen.

Tiered meetings run on Lean Studio boards: the team enters the day's KPI values in the huddle, a meeting timer keeps it to 10 to 15 minutes, live notes give the next shift context, and unresolved items escalate to the tier 2 board. Tiered Meetings
An issue from the huddle becomes a tag with an owner and a due date in Daily Issue Management. Daily Issue Management
The attendance question is a skills question: the skills matrix and Job Cover Matrix show who is qualified to cover which station. Competency Management

See Tiered Meetings

Open this board in LeanSuite

Daily Huddle Board is one of the 30 ready-made boards in Lean Studio, LeanSuite's whiteboard. Try the interactive demo in your browser with sample data, or pilot LeanSuite on your own lines for 90 days, with the setup done by our team.

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FAQ

Daily Huddle Board: common questions

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