With permission from 1,204 teams, we counted every word in 18,000 stand-up notes recorded between March and July. Names and project words were removed on the phone before counting.
The list
1. basically
2. just
3. yesterday
4. today
5. blocked (well, “kind of blocked”)
6. PR
7. sync
8. hopefully
9. waiting
10. quick
11. anyway
“Basically” appears 4.2 times per stand-up on average. “Blocked” appears in 61% of them, but usually with a softener in front.
The word that predicts a long stand-up is not “blocked”. It is “quick”.
What we changed
The stand-up summary now pulls out blockers and owners first, and ignores filler. Teams using it report stand-ups about three minutes shorter.