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The Complete Guide to English Standup Meeting Expressions for Developers: From Daily Standup to Sprint Review

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The Basic Structure of a Daily Standup

A standup meeting follows a format of answering three questions:

  1. What did you do yesterday?
  2. What will you do today?
  3. Any blockers?

Basic Template

Yesterday:
- I worked on [task] and [completed/made progress on] it.
- I reviewed [PR/document] from [colleague].

Today:
- I'm going to [task].
- I plan to [task].

Blockers:
- I'm blocked on [issue] because [reason].
- No blockers at the moment.

Reporting Progress

Completed Work

SituationEnglish ExpressionMeaning
Task completedI finished implementing the user authentication module.Completed user auth module implementation.
PR submittedI opened a PR for the payment integration.Submitted a PR for payment integration.
Code reviewI reviewed three PRs and left feedback.Reviewed 3 PRs and left feedback.
Bug fixI fixed the memory leak issue in the caching layer.Fixed the memory leak in the caching layer.
DeploymentI deployed the hotfix to production.Deployed the hotfix to production.

Work in Progress

"I'm currently working on the database migration script."

"I'm about 70% done with the API refactoring."

"I'm still investigating the root cause of the timeout errors."

"I've been pair-programming with Sarah on the search feature."

Planned Work

"Today I'm going to start working on the notification service."

"I plan to write unit tests for the order processing module."

"I'll be focusing on performance optimization today."

"My priority for today is to resolve the CI pipeline failure."

Explaining Blockers and Issues

Technical Blockers

"I'm blocked on the deployment because the staging environment is down."

"I'm waiting for the DevOps team to provision the new database instance."

"I ran into a dependency conflict when upgrading the framework version."

"The third-party API is returning inconsistent responses,
so I need to add more error handling."

Asking for Help

"Could someone with Kubernetes experience take a look at my deployment config?"

"I'd appreciate a review on my PR — it's a critical path change."

"I could use some help debugging the WebSocket connection issue."

"Does anyone have experience with gRPC streaming?
I'm hitting some edge cases."

Sprint Planning

"I estimate this task at 5 story points."

"I think we should break this epic down into smaller tasks."

"Given the complexity, I'd suggest carrying this over to the next sprint."

"Can we clarify the acceptance criteria for this story?"

Sprint Review / Demo

"Let me walk you through the changes I made to the checkout flow."

"Here's a quick demo of the new search functionality."

"We achieved a 40% reduction in page load time."

"One thing to note — we decided to defer the caching optimization
to the next sprint."

Retrospective

"What went well: our deployment process is much smoother now."

"What could be improved: we need better documentation for onboarding."

"I suggest we add a code freeze period before each release."

"Action item: set up automated regression tests by next sprint."

Technical Discussion Expressions

Design Discussions

"I'd like to propose a different approach for the data pipeline."

"The trade-off here is between latency and consistency."

"Have we considered using an event-driven architecture for this?"

"I think we should add a circuit breaker to prevent cascading failures."

Code Review Discussions

"I left a comment on line 42 about the error handling approach."

"This change looks good to me. LGTM!"

"Could you add some inline documentation for this complex logic?"

"I have a minor nit — could you rename this variable to be more descriptive?"

Common Abbreviations and Expressions

Abbreviation/ExpressionMeaningExample Usage
LGTMLooks Good To Me"LGTM, approved!"
WIPWork In Progress"This PR is still WIP."
PTALPlease Take A Look"PTAL at my latest commit."
AFAIKAs Far As I Know"AFAIK, that API is deprecated."
ETAEstimated Time of Arrival"What's the ETA for this fix?"
OOOOut Of Office"I'll be OOO next Monday."
TL;DRToo Long; Didn't Read"TL;DR: we need to upgrade the SDK."
P0/P1/P2Priority levels"This is a P0 — production is affected."
SLAService Level Agreement"We're at risk of breaching our SLA."
MTTRMean Time To Recovery"Our MTTR improved to 15 minutes."

Practical Dialogue Scenarios

Scenario 1: Critical Incident

You: "Heads up, everyone — we have a P0 incident.
The payment service is returning 500 errors for about 20% of requests.
I've been investigating for the last 30 minutes and narrowed it down
to a database connection pool exhaustion issue.
I'm going to increase the pool size as a temporary fix
and work on a proper solution today."

Manager: "Thanks for the update. What's the ETA for the hotfix?"

You: "I should have the temporary fix deployed within the next hour.
The root cause fix will take about a day — I'll update the incident ticket."

Scenario 2: Tech Debt Discussion

You: "I'd like to flag some tech debt in the notification service.
We're currently doing synchronous HTTP calls for each notification,
which is causing timeout issues under load.
I'd propose migrating to an event queue —
this would improve both reliability and throughput."

Lead: "That makes sense. Can you write up a brief RFC
and share it with the team?"

You: "Sure, I'll have a draft ready by end of day tomorrow."

Presentation Tips

Do's

  • Keep it concise: Standups should be under 15 minutes — 1-2 minutes per person
  • Be specific: Say "I implemented the retry logic for the API client" instead of "I worked on stuff"
  • Be clear about blockers: If you need help, be specific about what you need
  • Be confident: Clear communication matters more than perfect grammar

Don'ts

  • Save long technical discussions for after the standup (Take it offline)
  • Don't list every detail
  • Say "I'll look into it and get back to you" instead of "I don't know"

Review Quiz (5 Questions)

Q1. What are the three questions covered in a Daily Standup?

What did you do yesterday?, What will you do today?, Any blockers?

Q2. How do you say "I submitted a PR" in English?

"I opened a PR for..." or "I submitted a pull request for..."

Q3. What do LGTM, WIP, and PTAL stand for?

LGTM = Looks Good To Me, WIP = Work In Progress, PTAL = Please Take A Look

Q4. What is an appropriate expression when presenting achievements in a Sprint Review?

"We achieved a X% improvement in..." / "Let me walk you through the changes..."

Q5. What do you say when a long technical discussion starts during standup?

"Let's take this offline" (let's discuss separately after the standup)