Scrum with Purpose
The scrum meeting, often called the daily scrum, or the daily stand-up, is a short meeting that takes place once per day (often in the morning). It's meant to be a brief 10-15 minute check point of scrum team members. The meeting is part of the Scrum methodology, first discussed in 1995 by Ken Schwaber in his paper "SCRUM Software Development Process". The later paper titled, "SCRUM: An extension pattern language for hyper-productive software development" (Mike Beedle et al.) introduced the Scrum Meeting. The original agenda of the meeting had each contributing participant answer three questions:
In the most recent scrum guide this agenda has been abandoned in favour of an approach that places more focus on progress made toward meeting sprint goals stating that,
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"The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management."
The scrum meeting provides an understanding to the team of each member's progress toward the goals of the sprint. It's an opportunity for team members to ask others for help to resolve thorny problems. It's also an opportunity for team members to offer others their expertise and knowledge in meeting goals. Scrum meetings often generate invaluable follow on discussion between analysts, developers and subject matter experts.
Done well, the daily scrum fosters a sense of community, shared responsibility and shared commitment among the team. This is especially true in a hybrid work environment where people are not co-located. The meetings provide a regular, consistent way for team members to share progress and updates with each other. Scrum meetings can also help to identify potential dependencies or roadblocks that need to be addressed. Because daily scrum meetings are short and focused, they can help to hold team members accountable for their work. By regularly reporting on progress and any challenges they are facing, team members are more likely to stay on track and deliver their work on time. Finally, daily scrum meetings provide an opportunity for team members to quickly share any problems or obstacles they are facing, and (as part of follow-up discussion) for the team to come up with solutions together. This can help to avoid delays and keep the project moving forward. The daily scrum can and should be an activity that team members look forward to each day.
To establish a successful daily scrum, first agree on some ground rules. One such ground rule should allow the scrum master, or facilitator, to bring the meeting back on track quickly if/when it gets off track. Another rule should be that follow on discussions are a normal activity if further dialog is necessary when the scrum concludes. Set an expectation of when the scrum will take place each day and how long it will last. The meeting should be a normal heart beat of team life. Team members should be encouraged to be honest about their progress and to ask for help when needed. Each member should leave the meeting knowing where the team stands on being able to meet its commitment for the sprint. As an aid to foster team understanding of progress use visual information radiators such as the sprint objectives, sprint burndown (at the start of each meeting) and the sprint board (as each team member speaks). My personal preference is to provide teams some structure around the agenda while also allowing for plenty of flexibility so that each team can find their own rhythm. My suggested agenda for a new scrum team is for each participant to provide:
Try to avoid turning the scrum into a status report of everything each person is working on and what they're about to work on. Also avoid solutioning during the scrum. The solutioning discussion can take place after as a follow on. Finally, don't make the scrum a super formal meeting where minutes are taken and shared. Those that are interested in the meeting content should attend. I believe each of these are scrum anti-patterns which stretch out the length of meeting and move the focus away from understanding progress toward sprint goals. The difference between the success and failure of the meeting is the willingness of participants to attend it. Stretching the meeting into a 30 or 45 minute marathon each day will inevitably and justifiably lead to complaints about how much it infringes on getting work done. Avoid this mistake at all costs.
Great post James!!!