Imagine having a daily 15 minute meeting where all participants will have to stand up, and no tea is served! It may sound like a radical idea to some, but it is commonplace in most agile based organizations. It is called the Daily Scrum meeting, and no, it is not used as a medieval form of punishment! Instead, it is a very useful tool for organizing an Agile Project team. It is as bold and inventive as its title suggests. This write up below will help explain the concept in a practical sense.

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute meeting conducted in the same place, at the same time, with the same Scrum/Agile project team. The team stands up throughout the meeting to shorten these meetings. Only three questions are to be discussed. They are:-

1. What did I do yesterday?
2. What am I going to do today?
3. What is stopping me from doing what I am doing

These questions, are designed to provide clarity to all the team members. Every team member shall then be aware of the tasks that are completed, tasks to be done, and the roadblocks along the way to achieving these tasks.

This encourages transparency of information between team members, and effectively maintains the project’s momentum. These meetings must only stick to these issues, and not lose its focus by discussing other matters. Only the three questions above are asked, to make sure that the Scrum team is on track to complete the desired project.

The most common tool used in this meeting is the Scrum board. Project activities on the Scrum board are divided between To Do, Doing and Done. These activities will move from one column to the next on a daily basis, in line with the findings of the daily scrum meeting.

In order to guarantee effectiveness of these meetings, the following guidelines should be observed:

1. Start and end the meeting on time: Always start and end a meeting on time. The meeting should be time boxed, and no additional time is to be allocated to the meeting. This ensures that team members will not veer off track in their discussions as there is a very limited timeframe.
2. Use a physical task board: Visually pointing at the user stories that are being talked about is more powerful and interesting.
3. No distractions! All team members should at all times have full attention on the meeting. Keep all phones in a tray, or ensure it is turned off.
4. It’s not a technical meeting: No technical issues are to be discussed. Everything apart from the above mentioned 3 questions should be avoided. Technical problems should be discussed in a separate sidebar meeting.
5. Not a status update meeting: Stop attending if it becomes a status update meeting. Your time is more valuable if spent on development and coding instead.
6. Acknowledge your teams’ contribution: Whenever someone helps you, acknowledge it.  It builds rapport and is a small gesture that may mean a lot to your team members.

The daily scrum is just one tool within a Scrum Master’s toolbox. For more information about Agile tools and techniques, do consider the Scrum Master Certification online course.

 

Udhay Sharma,

Scrum Master Certified, Scrum enthusiast since 2017.