Daily Scrum

Daily Scrum is " Inspection and Adaption at the Heart of Scrum "

Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Team of 7-10 to synchronize activities and create a plan for the next 24 hours. The Daily Scrum is held every day of the Sprint. At it, the Development Team plans to work for the next 24 hours.

The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect and synchronize the team's progress towards the Sprint Goal, discuss if anything impedes the team, and re-plan the team's work to achieve the Sprint Goal.

Responsible entity:- Scrum Master

The expectation from Responsible Entity

  • An updated Sprint Backlog

  • An updated Sprint plan to achieve the Sprint Goal.

  • Ensure the state of the User StoryIt’s recommended for the scrum master to refer to the JIRA board and discuss the tasks which are in the open state.

  • Scrum master is the responsible entity to ensure that the team members are updating the details of time log details in JIRA.

Benefit for doing Daily Scrum:

  • Improve communications

  • Identify impediments to development for removal

  • Highlight and promote quick decision-making

  • Improve the Development Team’s level of knowledge and the idea is to inspect and adapt meetings.

What to do during Daily Scrum (How to make it Effective):

  • 3 questions should be answered by each participant-

    • What did I do yesterday that helped the Agile Team meet the Sprint Goal?

    • What will I do today to help the Agile Team meet the Sprint Goal?

    • Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?

  • Let the Agile Team choose the starting time venue and once it is fixed it must remain the same during the sprint.

  • Use a clear and shared Sprint Goal.

  • Use a daily goal Examples are getting user story X done and user story Y into the test, empty the 'to be tested' column, get the test environment up-and-running.

  • Use a parking lot. During the Daily Scrum, a lot of topics will arise that the participants want to discuss with each other. Often these are topics that don't concern the entire team. To ensure the daily Scrum to be concise, use a parking lot to capture the topics that need to be discussed but not necessarily during the daily Scrum. After the Daily Scrum, the items placed on the parking lot can be addressed with the relevant team members.

  • Use the task board actively. Create a task board at a central place during the Daily Scrum. Encourage every team member to point out the tasks (s)he worked on and have them update it right away. This provides clarity, encourages collaboration and stimulates, and active participation. It also ensures the task board is completely updated after every Daily Scrum.

  • Focus on results instead of activities. This avoids discussing minor tasks that don't contribute to the Sprint Goal. More important is the stuff the team actually achieved. What are the concrete results you have achieved and what should be the result of the upcoming day? The earlier mentioned daily- and Sprint Goal are useful practices hereby.

  • Update Sprint Burndown by Scrum Master

  • If you're late please inform the team on group chat or whatever way.

  • No electronic device is other than the digital board if applicable.

  • Include your remote team before daily scrum starts.


Good Practices for Daily Scrum:

  • Objective: to tell what was done the previous day, what is done today, and if there is any impediment that does not allow us to carry out the tasks. The goal of the Daily Scrum is to know whether or not we will reach the Sprint Goal.

  • Give the floor to one person at a time - Don’t go into a dialogue or discuss anything in detail. Meet afterward if you want to discuss further.

  • Allow people to be vocal about anything they think is important- Don’t create a judgmental atmosphere only to discover the real issues after the sprint.

  • Challenge the issue at hand - Don’t become personal by challenging the person.

  • Be wary of those who repeatedly say they have ‘nothing new to report’. - Don’t assume everything is fine when things are suspiciously quiet or predictable. People may be afraid to say something or working on an irrelevant side-project.

  • Reporting to the Leader- If Team members are facing and talking to the manager or meeting facilitator instead of to the team. This indicates that the daily stand-up is for the manager/facilitator when it is actually supposed to be for the team.

Common issues faced in Daily Scrum-

  • People are Late.

  • Storytelling – Instead of providing a brief description of an issue, the participant provides enough details and context to cause others to tune out.

          • Some tricks and tactics to conduct the Daily Scrum are listed here

End of the day status email

Another important communication tool for the effective transition of updates is an end of the day status email. At Knoldus we have the following format for the email.

End of the day status email has the following advantages

    • The team on the other side of the globe knows exactly what the updates on the work are. (All the updates are not available from Git)

    • If there are any wins or blockers, the same is communicated effectively so that the work can continue.

Daily Scrum Status Report Template