How to run a ten-minute morning huddle crews actually use
The foreman reads the day's plan from a clipboard while the crew stands at the tailgate. Twenty-five minutes later he is still reading, two people are on their phones, and nobody has mentioned that planks were taken off the north scaffold yesterday. The huddle happened; it did not do its job.
Huddles fail in two ways: they turn into a lecture that runs long, or into a formality where everyone signs the sheet and nobody listens. Either way the crew learns to wait it out, and the one thing that mattered — a changed condition, a blocked area, a new hazard — goes unsaid. A good huddle is short because it is prepared, and useful because the crew does most of the talking.
A ten-minute format
- Prepare it the afternoon before: today's tasks by crew and area, and the change or hazard that matters most — see planning tomorrow before you leave.
- Start on time, in the same place, standing, close to the work where you can.
- Plan, about two minutes: who works where, on what, with what target.
- Hazards, about three minutes: name today's specific hazards — the altered scaffold, the crane lift over the east bay — and ask the people doing that work how they will control them.
- Blockers, about three minutes: ask each crew what could stop them today. Write each one down with a name, and deal with it after the huddle, not during it.
- Close on what changed: repeat anything that differs from yesterday, and stop at ten minutes.
Common mistakes
- Reading a generic safety topic instead of naming today's hazards.
- Solving every blocker in front of the whole crew.
- Asking "any questions?" instead of asking each crew what could stop them.
- Waiting for latecomers, which teaches everyone that the start time is optional.
What to say
What to say, in order
Check your understanding
Why write blockers down during the huddle but solve them afterwards?
