The Weekly Scrum – What It Is, How It Works, and Why It’s Fantastic
It’s an agile game changer
If you know something about scrum methodologies, you’ll have heard of the daily standup. It’s one of, if not, the most important practices that occur in agile.
The short 10 to 15 minute round table discussion gives each member of the product team an opportunity to update the rest of the squad with:
Yesterday’s achievements
Describe what you was able to do yesterday
Today’s achievements
Describe what you intend to do today
Blockers
Describe anything that you need answering or unblocking
This quick session happens every day. So why do we need a Weekly Scrum?
The Weekly Scrum
Also known as, the sprint review.
As the name suggests, it happens weekly. It’s an additional opportunity for the product team to take a step back from the daily activities to discuss progress made, what’s been slowed down, what’s been stopped.
Progress
Review all of the stories or tasks moved to demo or done.
Slowed down
Stories or tasks that have not made the progress you were expecting.
Stopped
Stories or tasks stopped in their tracks.
Taking the time to run through the three pillars i’ve mentioned do a few things: allows the team to celebrate success, keep things moving at pace, and ultimately fires up the engine again.
The challenge
Not many teams are rolling with this meeting though. Let me explain why: the idea is obscure and not very well understood, and it’s just another meeting in the teams’ diary, which as we all know time is a commodity in software development.
Personally, I don’t view obscurity as a valid reason for not giving something a go. Trial it for a couple of weeks, ask your product team if it’s valuable if it doesn’t work for your team. Just stop. At least you gave it a go.
I also think looking at time as a commodity is a traditional way of thinking. Yes, time is money, but I’d rather invest time in assessing progress, celebrating success and unblocking stories. You’ll probably spend more time later down the line as that one story that’s blocked that you never discussed, will just keep rolling over into the next sprint.
Plus, there’s so much more.
Empowerment
Product teams that use the Weekly Scrum actually really enjoy it. From first-hand experience, I’ve found it’s a chance to talk in more detail about the achievements of the past week, it’s a slot in the diary that doesn’t have a timer and hard stop of 10–15 minutes like the stand-up.
Focus
We’re human, we have personal challenges, we burn out, and we get distracted, we lose our focus. The Weekly Scrum reclaims the focus you may have lost because an individual has the opportunity to review the done. Identify the gaps. Lean on others.
Re-assess
When things aren’t on track, we need to pivot and replan — and sooner rather than later. If we’ve underestimated stories and we know stories are going to roll over, having that knowledge mid-sprint gives us the amazing opportunity to break down stories further, identify the dependencies, define actionable deliverables, refocus on the outcomes.
Transparency
In my view, the single most valuable asset of the weekly scrum is the greater level of transparency and ownership it brings to the product team.
In summary
The Weekly Scrum (aka Sprint Review) is an awesome — optional, meeting to add to your sprints.
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