Daily SCRUM — Not a status meeting
I have heard from many peers that their scrum meeting could be an email or they can just use the slack-bot for the status report of each teammate daily during the sprint. Some of them consider the SCRUM a waste of time and effort. They think that instead of attending the scrum, they could have done something more productive. Hearing all these, I cannot blame the developers for this approach. The failure was at the point where:
The Scrum meeting was just a status meeting for them.
What: The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team.
Why: The purpose of the Daily Scrum is for the development team to monitor and optimize their own work. As the scrum guide says: “The Daily Scrum optimizes the probability that the Development Team will meet the Sprint Goal.” The Daily Scrum is held every day of the Sprint. At it, the Development Team plans work for the next 24 hours. This optimizes team collaboration and performance by inspecting the work since the last Daily Scrum and forecasting upcoming Sprint work.
Where: The Daily Scrum is held at the same time and place each day to reduce complexity.
Goal: The development team optimizes their work by:
- Inspecting their progress towards the sprint goal
- Forecasting upcoming Sprint work
- Understanding how to work as a self-organizing team
Uses:
- Improve communications
- Eliminate other meetings
- Identify impediments to development for removal
- Highlight and promote quick decision-making
- Improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge
A better Daily Scrum:
Now that we know the purpose of the Daily Scrum, we can imagine what a good Daily Scrum would look like:
“The development team rises in preparation of the Daily Scrum, without the Scrum Master has to do anything. Then the first development team member states her adapted plans for today. Immediately another team member jumps in and says “hey, I will work on that other task today, so let’s coordinate and work on this together today”. Then the team member states a problem they had yesterday and yet another team member offers help: “Hey, I already had a similar problem on my last project. Maybe I could help you! Let’s look at this problem right after the Daily Scrum.”. In time, the development team members end the meeting and approach the day with an adapted plan how to collaborate in order to fulfill the Sprint Goal. The main point is that the team should benefit from the Daily Scrum — not anyone from outside wanting a “status report”.
Daily SCRUM Technique:
- Should be Time boxed
- 15 min - Flow
- What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? What will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?
Who should attend:
Development Team. SCRUM master involvement is not compulsory
Daily SCRUM Rules:
- Don’t delay the start of the meeting
- Timeboxed (15 min)
- Come prepared & arrive on time
- The complete development team must be present
- Same place, same time
- Lead by the development team
- Don’t use scrum meeting as a planning meeting
- Don’t allow the meeting to go off track
- It is wrong if Scrum Master asking everyone to report
- It is wrong if Scrum Master starting and ending the meeting
Avoid the following:
- Coming Late
- Sitting Down
- Lengthy Talk
- Not Listening
- Relying on one Person always as lead
- Stating the Same Status for many days
- Not openly ask help to the blocking issue
- Improper tools for tracking the status
- Back and forth talking
Daily SCRUM: Conclusion
At the end of a Daily Scrum The Development Team should have transparency over the following:
- Progress towards the Sprint Goal
- Impediments to achieving the Sprint Goal
- An action plan for the next 24 hours on how the team is going to work together towards achieving the Sprint Goal.
- How it is going to adapt to new learning since the previous Daily Scrum
References: https://medium.com/serious-scrum/the-daily-scrum-31fd2cb041fe
Scrum guide.
