Daily Scrum: Best Practices and Pitfalls to Avoid

By now, you’re pretty familiar with Scrum. It’s given your team a framework they can work with to achieve internal goals so they can deliver quality software to customers. But, you can always improve your Scrum practices to continue to delight your customers. 😁 One of these is the daily scrum — a practice that sounds straightforward, but is easy to mismanage (more on this soon 😉).

The daily scrum consists of three elements — Scrum roles, Scrum artifacts, and Scrum events.

In this article, we'll show you how these components fit into the all-important daily scrum meeting, provide some tips to keep your daily scrum running smoothly, and discuss what traps to avoid so that your team is always on task. We'll also point you towards resources that will get you proficient in the other elements of agile. Our goal, as always, is to make you an agile pro. 🏄🏽‍♀️

What is the Daily Scrum Meeting?

Let's do a quick recap of each of them before we dive into the daily scrum:

• Scrum roles: These are the product owner, the Scrum master, and the development team. These Scrum team members work together as a unit to achieve their goals.
• Scrum artifacts: Artifacts include the product backlog, the sprint backlog, and the increment. The artifacts represent information to the team that enables them to have transparent views against which to measure their progress.
• Scrum events: The sprint, sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review, and sprint retrospective give the team an opportunity to meet and refine any of the Scrum artifacts that need adjusting to keep the team's goals within view.

The daily scrum is a meeting between team members to discuss its current sprint progress. It's time to discover if any adjustments to the sprint or the product backlog need to be made in order to achieve its sprint goal.

Importance of Daily Scrum

The daily scrum plays a crucial role in enhancing both team coordination and communication. This brief, focused meeting offers the team a structured environment to align on progress and obstacles, contributing to several key areas:

1. Progress Transparency: Team members get a clear view of what everyone is working on, which fosters accountability and mutual support.
2. Impediment Identification: Problems and potential roadblocks are surfaced early, allowing the team to address them promptly and minimize project delays.
3. Focused Collaboration: By keeping discussions relevant and on-point, the team can spend their time more effectively, concentrating on solutions rather than prolonged debates.
4. Goal Alignment: The meeting helps reaffirm and refocus efforts toward the sprint goals, ensuring everyone is aligned and moving in the same direction.

By adhering to best practices, such as keeping the meeting time-boxed and promoting an inclusive atmosphere, teams can maximize the benefits of the daily scrum, leading to a more cohesive and efficient working environment.

Key Participants in the Daily Scrum

Development team

The development team members are the main participants in the daily scrum. During the meeting, they report on their progress towards the sprint goal to discover if any adjustments need to be made. They can do this by each answering three questions:

1. What did I work on yesterday towards the sprint goal?
2. How do I plan on working towards the sprint goal today?
3. ​Is there anything preventing me from finishing what I am working on?

By doing so, everyone on the team is in the loop of the full team's progress. The answers to these questions also allow the team to uncover any blockers and adjust the sprint backlog accordingly. An example of a blocker may be a bug that prevents one developer from finishing her assigned user story in the sprint.

Scrum master and product owner

In traditional Scrum, the Scrum master and product owner aren’t active participants — and aren’t technically required — in the daily scrum meeting since they don’t do the development work that will achieve the sprint goal. However, they can still be valuable meeting participants. It’s up to the Scrum team to decide if they should attend.

• The product owner can lead the way in adjusting the sprint's backlog items. For example, the bug that is blocking other work can be moved so it gets fixed in time to keep the sprint goal within reach.
• The Scrum master can make sure that daily scrum best practices are being followed and that the team is avoiding some of the common pitfalls that betray the objectives of the daily scrum meeting. Let's look at those next.

What's the Difference Between Daily Scrum and Daily Standup?

Sometimes, it can be confusing to tell the differences between daily scrum and daily standup — and sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. However, it's worth pointing out the differences between the two.

A daily scrum is an event that is defined in the Scrum guide. So, then what is daily stand-up, and how is it different? 🤔

A daily stand-up is a daily meeting whose objective is to provide team members with progress towards a common goal. However, it is less restrictive in terms of its participants and time limits. In other words, team members outside of the Scrum team can participate and the meeting can run longer than 15 minutes. For example, a company may conduct a daily stand-up that includes its entire staff or a particular department whose progress updates are not limited to the development of software.

Daily Scrum Best Practices

So, what are the best practices for conducting your daily scrum meetings effectively?

1. Complete the daily scrum in a time box

A 15-minute time frame is most commonly used to ensure that the team stays focused and on point. After all, team members only need to answer their three questions succinctly and effectively.

2. Conduct the meeting at the same time and place every day

This will provide a level of consistency and regularity and will help foster the Scrum values of commitment and focus.

3. Include the same team members in each daily scrum meeting

If you have a rotating cast of characters, then you run the risk of disruptions. Some people in the meeting will likely be missing context from prior meetings and will need to be updated.

Daily Scrums for Remote or Distributed Teams

Daily scrums are pivotal in ensuring team alignment, but for remote or distributed teams, they require thoughtful execution to maintain effectiveness. Here's how you can make the most of your virtual daily scrums:

Leverage Video Meetings Intelligently

Video meetings bring the advantage of live conversation, crucial for real-time collaboration and clarity.

• Respect Personal Needs: Recognize that being on camera can be draining. Offer flexibility by allowing team members to choose when to use their cameras.
• Avoid Fatigue: Encourage camera use for important discussions but provide options for audio-only participation to prevent exhaustion.

Manage Time Zones Wisely

Distributed teams often span multiple time zones. Here's how to navigate the challenge:

• Schedule Smartly: Find a suitable meeting time that works for the majority. For instance, someone might join in the mid-morning while it’s early morning for others.
• Consider Asynchronous Updates: When time zones are vastly different, rely on asynchronous communication like task board comments or chat channels to keep everyone informed without disrupting their work-life balance.

Utilize Visual Tools

Visual aids can significantly enhance understanding and engagement in virtual meetings.

• Screen Sharing: Use screen sharing to display task boards or project management software, providing a clear, visual context for discussions.
• Collaborative Tools: Leverage tools like Miro or Trello for visual brainstorming and task tracking during the scrum.

Define Working Agreements

Creating clear working agreements ensures everyone is on the same page regarding processes and expectations.

• Communication Methods: Specify how team members should communicate, whether through video calls, messaging apps, or emails.
• Collaboration Tools: Decide on which tools to use for documentation, real-time collaboration, and async updates. Popular options include Slack for communication and Jira for task management.

Daily Scrum Pitfalls

There are tempting activities to avoid while conducting your daily scrum meeting. These are some of the common pitfalls to avoid:

1. Using the meeting as a status update

To the product owner, Scrum master, or other stakeholders. The main objective of this meeting is for the development team to answer their three questions so that they can make any needed adjustments to keep the sprint goal intact. It should not be used as a status meeting for developers to report on the progress of their work.

2. Turning it into a problem-solving session

To resolve any blocks that are discussed in the meeting within the 15-minute time frame. One thing will undoubtedly happen if the team attempts this — the meeting will run too long! The Scrum master should advise the team to stay on task during the meeting and defer these problem-solving attempts to time outside of the daily scrum meeting.

3. Focusing on a task board

As a means of tracking progress. The daily scrum meeting is a time for discussion. If the team is staring at a task board, it's wasting valuable time by focusing on the status of tasks and not on talking about making adjustments to its work.

In addition to these key points, there are several other common mistakes that can derail the effectiveness of a daily scrum:

• It’s become a boring status meeting that no one wants to attend. This indicates a lack of engagement and purpose.
• Developers are reporting personal performance to a scrum master or manager, which can undermine the collaborative spirit of the team.
• The meeting isn’t held if the scrum master can’t make it that day. This dependency can disrupt the consistency of daily progress checks.
• The team is trying to solve problems and find solutions during the daily scrum, which should be avoided to respect the timebox.
• The daily scrum is being used to refine work items, which is not its intended purpose. Refinement should occur separately.
• The timebox isn’t respected, leading some team members to feel like the meeting is a burden. It's crucial to stick to the 15-minute limit.
• Some developers think they don’t need to show up, which can result in misalignment and missed opportunities for team synchronization.

By being aware of these common pitfalls and maintaining a focused and efficient daily scrum, teams can ensure they are making the most of their time together and keeping their sprint goals on track.

Master Daily Scrum and Become an Agile Pro

At Easy Agile, we provide products to manage all of your Scrum events. We are passionate about making agile accessible and easy to understand for its participants. In addition to our products, we love to provide resources so you can level up your agile game 💪. Check out our blog and our podcast to become an agile pro!