Daily Scrum

What is the Daily Scrum and how to run it?

In this series of articles, I provide a deep dive of the 5 Scrum events: the Sprint, Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective. For each event, you’ll find a summary table describing the timebox, the purpose, the participants, and the expected outcome of the meeting. You can also download the whole PDF document (see link at the bottom).

Daily Scrum

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute  daily sync meeting between the team members of a Scrum Team (the “Developers”) to review where they are with the work for the Sprint, discuss any impediments, and decide together what actions to take and where to focus for today.

The Daily Scrum is an opportunity for the Developers to get together and inspect their progress towards the Sprint Goal. They do this every day, to keep track of their progress and to identify what to do in order to complete the Sprint Goal.

The daily scrum meeting is not a status update meeting in which a boss is collecting information about who is behind schedule. Rather, it is a meeting in which team members make commitments to each other on what to do next to move forward.

At the Daily Scrum the Developers should answer these questions:

• How is the Sprint going?
• Are we on track to deliver the Sprint Goal and complete the work on the Sprint Backlog by the end of the Sprint? Are we late?
• Do we have impediments that are stopping us from completing the Sprint Goal?
• What needs to happen today in order to move forward and achieve the Sprint Goal?

The Daily Scrum (also called a Stand-up meeting when in-person) is timeboxed to 15 minutes to keep the conversation focused and avoid lengthy discussions. The meeting is designed to be a quick sync between the Developers, to inspect their progress in the Sprint and to decide what to do next to move forward.

The Daily Scrum is not designed for lengthy discussions on technical details, on problem-solving impediments, or Q&A with the Product Owner: simply there isn’t enough time for these. Instead, these conversations should happen later in the day.

Format of the Daily Scrum

Many Scrum Teams do the Daily Scrum by answering three questions. Typically, they ask each other the classic “3 questions”:

1. What have we accomplished so far toward the Sprint Goal?
2. What are we going to do today to achieve the Sprint Goal?
3. Are there any impediments that would prevent us from achieving the Sprint Goal?

Notice that the questions are “we” questions, and not “I” questions: this is important because we are working together as a team, and we are inspecting the progress in the Sprint as a team.

Sometimes, answering these questions may get in the way of a productive Daily Scrum. A typical problem is that there is not enough time for everyone to answer the questions, so the team timeboxes each person’s answers and the meeting feels rushed. Or, everyone answers the questions about their own work, and the team forgets to take a look together at the Sprint Goal and what it takes to complete the Sprint successfully.

There are other ways to facilitate the Daily Scrum besides the 3 questions. An effective way is to look at the team board and at the Sprint Backlog and do a PBI-by-PBI review of what needs to be done to complete the remaining PBIs. This focuses the conversation on the progress of the Sprint and on the work that the team needs to do next.

What the Developers can do at Daily Scrum

Here are some suggestions for what the team members should do during the Daily Scrum:

• Inspect progress towards the Sprint Goal, and define where to focus on next
• Identify any impediments
• Look at the Sprint Burn-down chart
• Look at the Team Board and discuss how to complete the work on any PBI “in progress”
• Define a plan for what to do next and a goal to complete by end of day
• If needed, schedule another meeting for problem-solving later in the day or Q&A with the Product Owner

The goal of the Daily Scrum is to look ahead and plan how to complete the Sprint successfully. Notice that by focusing on the above activities, it may help the Developers have a more productive Daily Scrum.

The “Follow-up” meetings

It is a good practice to schedule a follow-up meeting for problem-solving the impediments. Notice that at this follow-up meeting not everyone needs to participate: the Developers can select 2 or 3 participants to do it on the team’s behalf.

Another example is Q&A with the Product Owner. This can be a lengthy conversation and again there is not enough time at Daily Scrum for it. A better way is for the Product Owner to be a silent observer during the meeting, and later schedule a time on the calendar to meet with anyone who has questions. By doing this, the Product Owner ensures that the team gets the answers it needs, while at the same time maintains the integrity of the Daily Scrum.

If the Developers need to sync with each other, talk with the Product Owner, or analyze possible solutions to problems they are facing, they can have these conversations AFTER the Daily Scrum. In fact, the Scrum team works together all day, so besides the Daily Scrum, they have 7 more hours and 45 minutes every day to sync up and discuss solutions.

This means that the 15 minutes at Daily Scrum can be focused on inspecting progress toward the Sprint Goal and updating the plan on what to do today to advance toward completing the work.

The role of the Scrum Master at Daily Scrum

The Scrum Master acts as a facilitator (when needed): if the Developers need help facilitating the Daily Scrum, the Scrum Master can support it. For example, the Scrum Master may want to make sure everyone understands the purpose of the event, and the Scrum Master may offer ideas on how to run the meeting.

Also, the Scrum Master may offer 3 questions that everyone answers (as examples, choose from those listed above). Or the Scrum Master may suggest to do PBI-by-PBI Review in front of the Sprint Backlog to focus the conversation on the work to be done. In any case, the Scrum Master should not direct the meeting, nor be on the receiving end of the discussion: the Daily Scrum is for the Developers to talk to each other, and no one else.

Here are some tips for the Scrum Master at Daily Scrum:

• Establish and respect a 15 minutes timebox
• Make sure everyone understands the purpose of the meeting
• Invite the team to clearly identify a plan for today and the actions everyone is going to take for it
• Jot down any impediments they have, and later check if the team has started working at solving them, or if they need help
• Make sure the team members inspect the progress of their work and decide what to do next, rather than mechanically going around the room and answer questions.

Notice that it’s not the job of the Scrum Master to solve the team’s impediments. In fact, it’s the Developers’ responsibility. The Scrum Master, though, should ensure that the Developers solve the impediments. That’s why it’s useful to have multiple check-ins during the day, to confirm that they have solved their impediments, or to invite them to do so.

If the Developers need help with impediment resolution, they can reach out for help and the Scrum Master may offer assistance. For example, the Scrum Master may connect with another team who may be able to help, and invite the team members to talk to each other.

The role of the Product Owner at Daily Scrum

The Product Owner is a silent observer: it may be helpful for the Product Owner to listen in and get a sense of how things are going for the Developers, what to expect (or not) by the end of the Sprint, and if the Developers need any help in understanding the scope of work.

The Product Owner also should not be on the receiving end of the conversation: the Daily Scrum is for the Developers, and the Product Owner (when present) is a silent observer. Again, any conversation or further discussion with the Product Owner can take place throughout the day, AFTER the Daily Scrum. It’s often useful for the Product Owner to schedule an “office hour” time in their team’s calendar to answer questions and provide context to the Developers later in the day.

Download the PDF

You can download the PDF document, print it, or keep it handy for use with your team when your run the Scrum events.