From surveying many people in my CSM training I’ve found most people think that Daily Scrum is about team members answering the three famous questions:
- What did you do yesterday?
- What will you do today?
- What are your impediments or roadblocks?
These questions are a useful starting point, yet adherence to exactly the same questions is an impediment itself.
Daily Scrum is intended to help the team:
- Self organize
- Prepare to collaborate for the day
- Ensure that we’re still on track to meet the Sprint Goal
I’ve often suggested that teams consider improving the three questions to:
- What did you complete yesterday?
- What will you complete today?
- What is slowing you down?
I find focusing on completion helps the team focus on getting features to completion. I also find that asking about slowdowns finds more impediments.
I’ve also been known to suggest that problem solving happens best immediately after the Daily Scrum. Allowing team members who’re not interested to sit down, while those who want to solve the problem(s) remain engaged. However, recently I’ve watched several teams turn this into an exercise with militaristic precision.
With the first Daily Scrum our ScrumMaster, Steve, has established the Daily Scrum time at 10am every day. The meeting is held in front of the team’s Sprint Backlog and Steve insists stand and not lounge against the desks. At the beginning, he reminds team members of the three questions: “What did you complete yesterday?” He also reminds team members that problem solving is saved for after Daily Scrum. As the activity progresses Steve barks at one team member who gets off track and gently reminds another when they move to problem solving. The activity almost always ends in less than 8 minutes. Steve is surprised that team members rarely hang around afterwards to resolve issues. In addition, instead of collaborating, most team members seem to go off to their respective silos to work for the day.
Rereading this post and reflecting on the purpose of Daily Scrum Steve decides to loosen up. He realizes that the past approach was all about him and not about the needs of the team. Steve begins by polling team members – is 10am the best time for Daily Scrum? Can you commit to being present for your team by that time every day? Then he creates a big poster with the purpose, the time limit and the three sample questions. Instead of reading them from his list of rules, he often asks which team member would like to read out the purpose and guidelines. Depending on the energy level and mood of the team, he sometimes opens with a simple warm-up game – anything from a ball-passing game to something from the world of Improv. Not until the team has warmed up does he invite them to get started. To remind people of the passage of time he displays a countdown timer on a large monitor near the Sprint Backlog. His daily standups sometimes lose focus, and they don’t always finish on time. However, they’ve become more energizing events for the team.
Ask your team if their current Daily Scrum is helping them achieve the purpose:
- Self organize
- Prepare to collaborate for the day
- Ensure that we’re still on track to meet the Sprint Goal
If it isn’t, then change your format and style until it does. After each change assume it will take 2-4 weeks to sort out whether the right change was made.
Remember there are only two rules: it happens daily, it’s 15 minutes or less.
Daily Scrum is not about following a checklist – it’s about collaboration.
This has been a very popular topic recently. For some other viewpoints try: Standup and Shut-up from Neil Killick. Richard Lawrence – Focusing on the Right Things in Your Daily Scrum. Best Daily Scrum Activity Ever (Tai Chi) – David Koontz. Tobias Fors – Worst Daily Scrum Ever. Another Story about Steve – his Daily Standup Challenges
What problems have you and your team suffered through over the years with Daily Scrum?
Scrum by Example is a narrative-style blog series designed to help people new to Scrum, especially new ScrumMasters. If you are new to the series, we recommend you check out the introduction to learn more about the series and discover other helpful articles.
Mark Levison has been helping Scrum teams and organizations with Agile, Scrum and Kanban style approaches since 2001. From certified scrum master training to custom Agile courses, he has helped well over 8,000 individuals, earning him respect and top rated reviews as one of the pioneers within the industry, as well as a raft of certifications from the ScrumAlliance. Mark has been a speaker at various Agile Conferences for more than 20 years, and is a published Scrum author with eBooks as well as articles on InfoQ.com, ScrumAlliance.org an AgileAlliance.org.
Nice article. I phrase my questions like this as well. The point for me of the first question is that of starting off with a “positive focus”. This is energizing. Phrasing things around completion is powerful and reminds everyone of the ongoing progress and is an energizing start to any meeting. I do the same at other meetings … start with a positive focus.
Charles – I like that. Ultimately all that matters is the meeting delivers value to the team. A positive focus from at the start seems like an excellent idea.
Great article Mark. I liked the ‘dysfunction’ you caught – answering the question and getting into silo. Many times people forget the collaboration and stuck with the mechanics of ‘answering the three questions’.