Scrum Events — Daily Scrum (Daily Standup)
Quick Reminder: What is Scrum?
Scrum (n): A framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.
— The Scrum Guide —
The Scrum framework consists of roles, events, artifacts and rules. Each part of the Scrum framework serves a specific purpose and is of vital importance to Scrum’s success and usage. Scrum is a lightweight framework, consisting only of 3 Roles, 3 Artifacts and 5 Events:
- Scrum Roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master and Development Team;
- Scrum Artifacts: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment;
- Scrum Events: the Sprint, the Sprint Planing, the Daily Scrum, the Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective.
Besides the official Scrum Events, there is also an activity that many Scrum Teams do, which is called Product Backlog Refinement (used to be called Grooming).
All the Scrum Events, including Product Backlog Refinment happen during the Sprint. A Sprint is the heart of Scrum, and is time-boxed period of one month or less, in which a “Done”, useable, and potentially releasable product Increment is created. Sprints have consistent durations throughout a development effort. A new Sprint starts immediately after the conclusion of the previous Sprint.
Introduction to the Daily Scrum (Daily Stand up)
The Daily Scrum meeting is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team. The Daily Scrum is held every day of the Sprint. During the Daily Scrum, the Development Team makes a plan for the next 24 hours. By having regular Daily Scrums’, they optimize team collaboration and performance.
In your everyday practice, you might also know the Daily Scrum as “The Daily Stand up” or just “The Daily”. Especially when you’re working in the context of Agile software development, the daily standup is probably a known practice to you. Beware though, that doing a Daily Stand up, physically standing in front of a (Scrum) board, while doing your daily updates, is just a practice. In the Scrum Guide, the official Scrum description, the Daily Stand up is called Daily Scrum. And it doesn’t tell you that you should be standing (it doesn’t have to be a stand up format) while you do the Daily Scrum.
Daily Scrums improve communications, eliminate other meetings, identify impediments to development for removal, highlight and promote quick decision-making, and improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge. This is a key inspect and adapt meeting.
Purpose of the Daily Scrum
The purpose of the Daily Scrum Event is to inspect progress made towards the Sprint Goal and progress made in the Sprint Backlog, in order to adapt the plan for the rest of the Sprint. The structure and meeting flow of the Daily Scrum is determined by the Development Team, as long as it’s focussed around the progress towards the Sprint Goal.
The time-box of the Daily Scrum
The time-box for the Daily Scrum is 15 minutes. The Daily Scrum is always conducted at the same place and time, in order to reduce complexity.
Who should attend the Daily Scrum
The Development Team is the ‘owner’ and sole participant in the Daily Scrum. The Product Owner and Scrum Master may be present, as well as other people outside the Scrum Team. However, the Scrum Master must ensure that nobody interferes with the Daily Scrum, except the Development Team.
What is Inspected during the Daily Scrum
During the Daily Scrum, the following is being Inspected:
- Progress towards the Sprint Goal;
- Progress in the Sprint Backlog;
- Impediments preventing the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal;
How the above goals are being inspected during the Daily Scrum, is decided on by the Development Team, since it is their meeting. The Daily Scrum can therefore be conducted in many different ways, which is not prescribed by the Scrum Guide, as long as it focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal. Some Development Teams will use questions, some will be more discussion based. Here is an example — it’s not mandatory to use these questions — of what might be used:
- 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?
The Development Team or team members often meet immediately after the Daily Scrum for detailed discussions, or to adapt, or replan, the rest of the Sprint’s work.
What is Adapted during the Daily Scrum
During the Sprint Planning meeting, the following is being Adapted:
- Sprint Backlog;
- Plan for the next 24 hours;
What is the Meeting Flow for the Daily Scrum
There are many ways for conducting the Daily Scrum. One of these forms is by for example answering ‘the three questions’ (as mentioned in the Scrum Guide). There are however many other forms as well, like discussing progress in the Sprint Backlog starting at the top of the Sprint Backlog and then moving forward to the bottom of the Sprint Backlog, item by item.
In order to help you in getting started with the Sprint Planning Event, I’ve created a ‘Daily Scrum Flowchart’ (see image below). This flowchart offers insights into what a typical Daily Scrum could look like.
Pitfalls during the Daily Scrum
Besides the Daily Scrum often required to be a Daily stand up by people, some other typical pitfalls of daily stand up meetings are:
- The team members are focussed on a task board (or Scrum board) too much, resulting in the Daily Scrum becoming a status meeting, status update or status report meeting, in which each of the team members answer questions about what they’ve done, what they’re going to do and if there is anything blocking them.
- Another typical pitfall is that the Agile Development Team members start doing a status update or giving a status report to the Scrum Master or the Product Owner. The idea however is that the Development Team should do the update for themselves. The idea of the Development Team giving a status update or doing a status report to the Scrum Master or Product Owner, often comes from more traditional ways of working, such as project management.
- A typical pitfall we also encounter a lot is that the Daily Scrum is used as a problem solving meeting, which can lead to extensive discussions and is therefore hindering the Daily Scrum to be a short meeting, of a maximum of 15 minutes. The idea is that impediments might be made transparent during the Daily Scrum, yet the actual solving of these impediments (or blockers) is done after the Daily Scrum.
- Although there are many more pitfalls, another pitfall we see quite often is that the Scrum Master or Product Owner are standing in front of the Scrum Board or Task Board. Basically being ‘in the lead’ of the Daily Scrum, and again leading to a status update meeting. In addition, standing in front of the Scrum Board as a Scrum Master or Product Owner and being in the lead, also results in less ownership and reduced self-organization of the Development Team. So, go and stand in the back as Product Owner or Scrum Master if you decide to attend the Daily Scrum.
Learn more about the Scrum Events
Hopefully this article about the Daily Scrum was valuable to you. If you want to learn more about the other Scrum Events, check out the links below, or join us in a Professional Scrum Product Owner course!
Originally published at www.robbinschuurman.nl on May 22, 2017.
