What is the Daily Scrum?
Do you have to go to the Daily Scrum every day? Do you need to stand up? Should the Scrum Master and/or Product Owner attend every one? In this vlog, I’ll explain what the Scrum Guide’s definition is and what that all really means to you.
The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress towards the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work. The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team, not for the whole Scrum Team.
To reduce complexity, it’s held at the same time in the same place every working day of the Sprint. If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively working on items in your Sprint Backlog, they participate in this event as Developers.
The Developers can select whatever techniques and structure they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress towards their Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management.
Daily Scrums improve communications, identify impediments, promote quick decision making, and consequently eliminate the need for other meetings. The Daily Scrum is not the only time the Developers are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet throughout the day for more detailed discussions about adapting or replanning the rest of the Sprint’s work.
So that’s it for the Daily Scrum. It’s a pretty quick event, and there’s not a lot of detail in the Scrum Guide about exactly how this is supposed to go.
So keep in mind, we’re focusing on the Sprint Goal and adapting our plan as necessary. It’s for the Developers of the Scrum Team, and the Product Owner and Scrum Master attend if they’re acting as Developers as well, meaning they’re working on the Sprint Backlog. And mainly, your Scrum Master only needs to attend outside of that to ensure that it happens and that it sticks to the time box, but they don’t have to show up all the time. That’s often shocking to most people, who believe a Scrum Master is supposed to be there to get impediments. They’re not. This is for the Developers.
If all of this information about Scrum is interesting to you and you’d like to learn more, please join us in one of our Applying Professional Scrum courses, Professional Scrum Master courses, or Professional Product Owner courses. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us.
