Is not just for laning phase.

Let's say both teams are setting up for a fight in mid.

1) Is everyone on your team present?
2) Is everyone on the enemy team present?
3) Do we have wards out so we are less likely to get flanked?
4) What are the minion waves doing?

I had the situation last night where the enemy team had flocked mid to try and take down mid turret. My team responded by showing up in Mid leaving us at something of a stand-off.

Our Yorick moved into position to try and flank their team, however he must have exposed himself or walked into an area that was warded as their team turned on him, so I hit their back line from behind as I had them flanked from the opposite side as Hecarim. I'm not exactly sure what the rest of our team was doing as I was tunneled on killing or keeping their fed Vayne out of the fight, but the end result was that we got our butts handed to us.

After the fight our Blitzcrank asked why we had went in as we had a large minion wave pushing their Top inner turret and all we had to do was stall and they would have lost it and possibly more if we were able to delay them in Mid.

So, bad on me for not noticing the minion wave and bad on Blitzcrank for not mentioning and important tactical consideration.

If we had stalled out, we would have at a minimum received 125 global gold for the destruction of the tower. Not a huge chunk of change but perhaps enough for someone to finish an item that might have made the next team fight come out differently.

So keep an eye on the mini-map and ping out or type chat messages to let other people on your team know about important developments that you see. Sure just about everyone may have already seen the Lee Sin headed Top to gank your Top laner, but the Top laner might not have if they were in the middle of a trade with their lane opponent.