An Asynchronous Daily Scrum?

An asynchronous Daily Scrum (or daily check-in)? 🤔

I used to love the Daily Scrum. This is the perfect opportunity to learn how the team progresses towards achieving the Sprint Goal 🎯. Even if my presence as a Scrum Master was optional, I’d enjoy catching up with team members.

When Christiaan Verwijs and I first started with The Liberators, I recall us doing a daily check-in. It was a quick call at 9:00 in the morning. Over time, it shifted toward a nice walk outside 🌳 on Monday. Which evolved into a ‘whenever it makes sense, we get in touch’ approach.

Nowadays, we inform each other primarily via email or chat (Signal), and if needed, we schedule a quick (Zoom) call ☎. It is always announced asynchronous, so we minimize interruptions of flow and focus.

Yes, we are only a 2-person team… but I don’t know if I would appreciate a Daily Scrum if we were part of a larger team.

I rarely schedule meetings in the morning, and I love the focus it provides. If I need a daily Scrum nowadays, I prefer to run it at the end of a workday.

But even so, what if everyone simply shares their progress in Slack or Discord? Make a work agreement that everyone’s update should be added at a particular time. If you don’t add anything — no problem — you’re doing fine, and everything is on track ✅.

An advantage is that everyone can write their update whenever it suits them best, and if more support is needed, you can always schedule a follow-up call. To keep the writing focused, you can create a simple template.

Instead of a daily check-in, you schedule a weekly call or in-person session to catch up. Or stick to the other Scrum events; maybe that’s already sufficient.

It might impact team dynamics; you risk not being aware of problems, and anything written is easily misinterpreted.

Does anyone experiment with an asynchronous Daily Scrum (or daily check-in)? If so, what were your experiences? How did it work out?

Or were you immediately corrected by the ‘this is not Scrum’- Scrum Police 👮‍♂️ 😅