Have you ever heard that when a project is more likely to succeed? Because in Scrum you take everything seriously. One of the key points of this agile framework is the Daily Scrum. A daily meeting to monitor and update everyone involved in the project.
Daily Scrum is an agile task within agile methodologies. It is a quick meeting (time box) that should be held every day of a Sprint, primarily at the beginning of the day.
It aims to disseminate knowledge about what was done the day before, identify impediments and prioritize the work to be carried out on the day that begins.
Daily Scrums are usually held in the same place, at the same time of day. They are ideally held in the morning to help set priorities for the new workday.
In this article, you will understand what you need to do to improve the Daily Scrum in your team and increase productivity to everyone on the staff.
Daily Scrum as a guide to best practices
The Daily Scrum is a daily meeting, which should last no longer than 15 minutes.
This conversation aims to understand what has already been done, what needs to be put into practice that day, and to identify bottlenecks that are preventing the progress of the processes.
In addition to aligning the Sprint points, the Daily Scrum is important because it maintains constant communication between the team. That is, it keeps everyone aware of the performance and completion of the work steps.
In addition, it ensures that the team engages in finding collaborative solutions to make possible adjustments to the planning.
Don’t find a problem
During the meeting, each one of the team will answer the three questions. But the idea is not to dwell on any of them, especially on the third, which concerns the difficulties. And obstacles that may exist for the advancement of some point. These issues should be dealt with later by the Scrum Master, according to each case and need.
The purpose of the Daily Scrum, which is a planning meeting, is to keep the entire team truly integrated. Also, gets to know everyone’s progress and the project’s progress. The advantages of this are that, by keeping the project progress current, it is easier to make course corrections that allow a Sprint to finish.
It is important to emphasize that no one needs to wait for the daily meeting to point out to the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, or even a teammate any difficulty or problem. Everything can and should be discussed as soon as possible to keep the process agile.
Day-to-day Daily Scrum
All agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban, Design Thinking, Double Diamond) can be used within your company for specific projects. Also for the change or construction of a new culture. The Daily Scrum, for example, is a practice that encourages active listening to leaders. It offers space and freedom for an employee to feel comfortable sharing their tasks and difficulties with colleagues and superiors.
Establish a quick daily meeting on the Daily Scrum models in teams. It could be a meeting from the HR area, or finance, or logistics, or marketing, or even one with representatives from committees such as diversity, innovation, or ethics. It is a proposal that can be implemented simply. Furthermore, it does not involve financial resources and neither consumes the time resources of those involved. On the other hand, it can help solve small and big problems.
Inspection and adaptation in the Daily Scrum
The development Scrum team uses the Daily to inspect the progress of the Sprint and seek the necessary increments so that the team can achieve the goals defined in the Sprint Backlog. It is at this meeting that the team manages to organize itself more productively.
Daily Scrum improves communication, eliminates the need for other meetings, identifies and allows immediate correction of impediments to sprint development. Also, highlights and promotes quick decision-making, and improves the team’s level of knowledge.
The Daily Scrum is the key to inspection and adaptation as an Agile Culture.
Who participates in the Daily Scrum?
The entire Sprint development team must participate in the Daily Scrum, and the Product Owner (PO) and Scrum Master (SM) should participate as well.
It is important that the Scrum Master exercise his role in the agile culture in the organization. But that he makes room for the team itself to lead the Daily Scrum meeting, always focusing on offering autonomy to the team.
So, if the SM is not present in the Daily, the team manages to drive smoothly.
Top 3 Daily Scrum Questions
Keeping in mind the top three questions for carrying out the Daily Scrum then ensures the organization and agility that everyone wants when implementing the Scrum methodology.
What did you do yesterday?
This question is one of the top task completion metrics a team can have during the meeting.
Knowing what and how much someone else did the day before is essential to understanding the size of the next step to take them.
If a team member has not been able to complete many tasks scheduled for the day before, it is a sign that a problem is in the way.
This situation needs resolution urgently. Heading for the third question from the Daily Scrum.
If this scenario is real, it determines that he will not be able to perform the tasks he had scheduled for the current day. That is, he will need to reorganize and reprioritize that day of Sprint.
What are you going to do today?
After the first question, it is now necessary for members to answer that day.
As important as the previous question, this one measures the sense of urgency of the tasks and allows members to be aware of the responsibility.
Are there/were there any obstacles in your path?
It is extremely necessary to understand the difficulties in performing the tasks.
In that case, members need to be honest with each other. The impediments in the path of a Sprint can be many, including personal impediments.
In addition, it may happen that some member of the team is having difficulties in the development of a task due to a lack of adequate training.
In that case, it’s worth pursuing the question if you suspect something like that.
Organizations need to be aware of the training needs of their employees so that the entire team finds agile solutions so that the process does not stop halfway.
The team seeks to support and collaborate among themselves so that Sprint’s progress is not harmed.
After Daily Scrum: what’s next?
One of the main artifacts for the development of Scrum is the visual management boards. Therefore, it is crucial that at each progress identified within the Daily Scrum the Product Owner (PO) inspects whether the team is updating the Sprint Backlog boards.
1. Get ready beforehand!
It’s against agile culture to arrive at the meeting not knowing exactly how you’re going to answer the Daily’s three questions.
It is the Scrum Development Team member’s role to prepare for the meeting and organize to present their progress and impediments.
2. 15 minutes is more than enough
Scrum has small teams, some literature says that with the Scrum Master and Product Owner. The team should not contain more than 12 people, thus, each one has little more than one minute of speech space.
With no interruptions and focused on meeting productivity, it’s more than possible.
3. The best time for the Daily Scrum is in the morning
The Daily Scrum performed during Sprints is usually in the morning. That’s because when starting the workday it is necessary to realize what the current scenario is. In addition, it helps to identify which are the priority activities that will ensure the good use of working time.
So, if your working hours start at 8, scheduling your Daily Scrum at 8:30, for example, is good practice. So that everyone can calmly arrive, read their emails, organize their day and prepare. for the Daily Scrum.
4. Note and resolve later
The golden rule for productivity is you cannot be passive in the Daily Scrum. But pay attention to what the other is saying and seek/offer assistance to increase the team’s progress.
In other words, write down the problem and solve it later!
5. Autonomy first
We must remember that the Daily Scrum is not a report for the PO or for the Scrum Master. The team is self-organizing and should position the communication for everyone on the team.
In fact, a good practice is to take turns facilitating and not centralize it in the PO or Scrum Master, to generate engagement and autonomy for everyone.
When only one facilitates, we tend to turn our speech towards this figure. Often not even looking at the rest of the team.
6. If it’s not generating value, it’s wrong
We can see that the most difficult thing is not to start carrying out the Daily Scrums. But to continue to do them, often teams leave the practice aside saying that over time they were no longer making sense.
In this case, it is necessary to rethink them and go back to this Daily Scrum Treaty to revisit the rules and maybe even create others and tell us.
The important thing is that you and your team see the value and are concerned about inspection and adaptation in Scrum projects.
7. Know how to finish the Daily Scrum
Don’t let the meeting get too long, as soon as the whole team speaks. Establish a clear end and call the team back to work, often after the meeting our energy is low.
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