If you have adopted Scrum for some time, you have probably worked in a team that has pushed back to have Daily Scrums or that haven’t seen much value in doing so. There are few common reasons that could lead to that situation:
- The team sees the Daily Scrum as a daily report to the Scrum Master or another member who attends the meeting
- The level of details is not properly set (too many details or too superficial and generic comments)
- The team believes they already talk during the day and don’t see a reason to have a formal event for that
- and many other reasons…
Those issues can be managed individually by showing the actual value of that Scrum ceremony. However, even if they bought in the idea, how do you know if your meeting is being effective? How do you know that you’re getting practical value from that theory?
Being effective is all about meeting its goals and IMHO the goals of a Daily Scrum should be:
- Setting (or adjusting) direction
- Understanding how the team is doing to meet the Sprint goals
- Understand where we want to be when we meet again
When attending the last TriAgile event, there were sessions and discussions about how to make Daily Scrums more effective. An interesting outcome from that day was the idea of slightly changing the 3 Daily Scrum questions to focus more on what can get done until the team meets again. According to the Scrum Guide, these are the 3 Daily Scrum questions:
- 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?
Although these questions help on understanding what was done and what is planned to be done, it does not set short-term (1 day) commitments for each member to pursue and to get things done. You can easily say what you’ll do until tomorrow and have nothing actually done by tomorrow. What if instead of saying what you will work on you said what you’ll get done by tomorrow? It’s not about sharing what you’ll do. It’s about sharing which small increment of value you’ll be completing until the next meeting. With something simple like that you can change the perception of Daily Scrums from ‘reporting/planning’ to ‘achieving’. That will also force your team to have smaller tasks that can be done in a day or so.
Having said that, see below the suggested questions to make your Daily Scrum more effective:
- What did I say yesterday I would get done to help Development Team meet the Sprint Goal?
- What will I get done 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?
Give it a try and share your experience!