Daily Scrum

The Scrum Guide – 2020

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work.

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team. To reduce complexity, it is held at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint. If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively working on items in the Sprint Backlog, they participate as Developers.

The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management.

Daily Scrums improve communications, identify impediments, promote quick decision-making, and consequently eliminate the need for other meetings.

The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet throughout the day for more detailed discussions about adapting or re-planning the rest of the Sprint’s work.

© 2020 Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland

Commentary

The latest version of the Guide brings clarification to several questions. Perhaps the most important is the participation of the Scrum Master and the Product Owner as Developers if they are actively working on the Sprint Backlog. The removal of the usual 3 questions is another important step forward to cleanse the Guide from arbitrary techniques.

The Daily Scrum seems to be the simplest and easiest element of Scrum, yet it is perhaps the most at risk by many poor practices. It often becomes a ceremony or even worse, a reporting meeting. Neither of these is its intended purpose. Instead, Developers should gather to synchronize their work in the Sprint. They inspect what has been done and adapt to what has been learned, to complete the increment.

Even for those teams that understand the purpose well, applying the rules in real-life conditions is harder than we may think!

Typical Issues Around the Daily Scrum

• In certain organizational cultures, there is a tendency to turn Daily Scrum into a reporting meeting. The presence of a senior stakeholder can easily change the behaviour of the team members. Instead of hearing about the progress of the sprint, we will learn about the heroic efforts of our colleagues, the long hours they worked, and the fantastic problem-solving skills they applied. Even those who are not supposed to actively participate in the discussion tend to join in with their own similar stories.
• In certain teams, people cannot resist discussing and solving all impediments right at the Daily Scrum. This is not the goal of this event, however, team members are encouraged to continue their discussions after the end of the meeting, or anytime later.
• Sometimes team members do not find the Daily Scrum interesting and would not attend unless requested, in person. It is a clear sign that the team does not look at this event as an opportunity but as a to-do. Team members who are present may also be prone to phase out while others are talking. This is a clear sign that something is wrong with the teamwork.
• Daily Scrum is often implemented as a ceremony. Team members give their statements to the Scrum Master (or a manager who regularly attends the meeting) and fail to address the main point.
• Contrary to logic, many Scrum Masters behave during the Daily Scrum and other Scrum Events as the ‘boss’ of the team. They might be urged to establish authority and requested to report to their managers, or they simply bring their habits from their project manager’s past. Actions of an ill-tempered Scrum Master typically result in an alienated team showing signs of demotivation, lack of ownership, scarce communication and generally low performance.

Common Misunderstandings

1. “The Daily Scrum is 15 minutes long.” – Not exactly: The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event. But it does not have to last for 15 minutes. Long Daily Scrums typically happen when Developers discuss their impediments, or new ideas right away. They can also become long if people are talking more about themselves than about the Sprint.
2. “The Daily Scrum is an occasion for the Product Owner and for the managers to catch up with the team.” – Not exactly: The Daily Scrum is an event for the Developers of the Scrum Team. Thus, it is not for the Product Owner (unless working on a backlog item) and the managers at all. The previous versions of the guide made the Scrum Master responsible for ensuring nobody disrupts the meeting. Disruption sounds like something dramatic, like repeatedly cutting into the words of the people or hijacking the conversation. However, the mere presence of a manager disrupts this event. Developers instinctively start reporting instead of discussing. This bears the risk of not meeting the goal of the event.
3. “Team members must reply to the three questions.” – Not exactly: The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want. (Note, it is not the Scrum Master who should decide.) The three questions are not in the Guide anymore. In the end, the three questions can be still adequate, there is nothing wrong with relying on them. However, it is not the point of the event. Also, there is no need to detail who was on leave, what meetings took place (unless it is an impediment), or explicitly declare that there were no impediments (which is the default situation). It is perfectly fine to state something like “I’m still working on the newsletter and will complete it today”.
4. “The Scrum Master facilitates the Daily Scrum.” – Not exactly, the latest version of the Guide does not even mention what the Scrum Master should do. Considering the goal of the event, there is not much need for facilitation. Once the team is mature enough to consistently have a short meeting every day without managerial disruptions, the Scrum Master does not even need to be there.

Avoiding Common Daily Scrum Pitfalls

When teams follow the traditional 3-questions pattern, Daily Scrum tends to lose its purpose. Even experienced Scrum Masters struggle with keeping team members focused and engaged. Since the goal of this event is to sync the team every day and plan the rest of the Sprint, it is very straightforward to focus on the status of the Product Backlog items instead of on the last 24 hours of the team members. The benefits are immediate:

• Participants stop talking about their day, meetings and achievements.
• Stakeholders do not feel invited to add their comments.
• Managers find hijacking an engineering meeting inappropriate.
• The status of the product backlog items becomes clear: as time justification is off the agenda, smoke-screening makes no sense anymore.
• Talking about product backlog items is more engaging and more collaborative than reporting on the three questions.
• Monitoring Sprint progress becomes very simple since the clarified and updated Sprint Backlog is a byproduct of the meeting.

This technique is the ‘walking the board’. There are benefits in combining and alternating multiple approaches to avoid a Daily Fatigue, there is room for experiments. However, any technique requires a rationale. For instance, a team of 3 may reach the goal of the Daily Scrum if they stay at their desks for an informal discussion.

Key Takeaways

• Daily Scrum is a meeting for the Developers.
• The Scrum Master can attend, facilitate, establish good practices, or collect information, but is not a required participant.
• The purpose is inspection and adaptation, in other words, synchronizing the work of the Developers.
• This is not a reporting occasion. Reporting and micro-management are not compatible with inspection and adaptation.
• The classic three questions are adequate but neither mandatory nor the best for all occasions.

External content: videos from Scrum.org and the Agile State of Mind

The two videos showcase two different worlds, it is worth watching both.

The Next 24 hours

The wording of the 2017 version of the Guide was a bit surprising: “the Development Team plans work for the next 24 hours“. While this never meant to request the Developers to work throughout those 24 hours, fortunately, this figure of speech is not in the Guide anymore, Daily Scrum simply happens every day.