The Daily Scrum is a chance for all the Scrum Team members to participate and share their efforts and interact. During this interaction everyone should be answering the three questions:
- What did I do since the last Scrum?
- What is my plan until the next Scrum?
- What are my Blockers to fulfilling my plan?
Sometimes I notice Scrum Masters are allowing the Daily Scrum to become a Task or Story Status update. Now, while in the short run this might seem efficient, in the long run it can cause all kinds of problems.
In fact, I would offer that transforming The Daily Scrum into a Task or Story Status meeting would be an Agile-Anti Pattern = Bad!
By accident I have forgotten a Team member or two during the Daily Scrum and they did feel left out. Now to my defense this is what happens when team members show up late in a virtual daily scrum. But there were other times it was my bad. Another risk that occurs when the scrum team gets too large.
Anyway Agile is supposed to be about:
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Where the Individuals (The Scrum Team) and Interaction (Daily Scrum) are supposed to be more important than the processes and tools (tasks and stories). As stated in the Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/). For crying out loud it is the very first line in only four values. Somehow Scrum Masters forget that.
If the Daily Scrum turns into a status report on stories and tasks, I’m telling you everyone is going to start turning the interaction off.
If it seems like the Daily Scrum is taking too long, then we as Scrum Masters have to remind people they only need to report out what was Completed the day before and not their entire day. I have seen that also. Working on something the day before does not equal Done.
As a Scrum Master, I’m routing for the Scrum team to win every time. Please don’t let the tools win.
Cheers.
