6.3 Daily Scrum
Daily meetings give the opportunity for the entire team to succinctly sync up on everyone’s individual progress (burn down chart) with regard to the iterated sprint, feature, or story point estimations.
- 15-minute time-boxed event for the development team;
- Held every day of the sprint, same time and place;
- Optimizes team collaboration and performance by inspecting the work done the day before;
- Forecasting work flow for the next day;
- Internal meeting for the development team; however, if others are present, the scrum master ensures that they keep quiet.
The daily scrum is the key “inspect and adapt” meeting during a sprint and the development team uses it to see the progress towards the sprint goal. The daily scrum will show if the team is on track with meeting the sprint goal, or if they are behind the estimated plan.
The development team structure the daily scrum themselves, being responsible for the meeting, which is normally facilitated by the scrum master. The scrum master is often keeping track of time, making sure that the team only uses 15 minutes, and sticks to the agreed rules about the daily scrum. It should not end up in long discussion or become a traditional status meeting. It can be conducted in different ways – some development teams use the 3 questions seen below, others use a more discussion based form.
- What did you do yesterday?
- What will you do today?
- Are there any blocks or impediments preventing you from doing your work?
Sometimes, more discussion is needed than 15 minutes. In that case, the development team or some team members can make separate meetings after the daily scrum for detailed discussions, or to adapt or replan the remaining work or part of it.
Daily scrums improve team participation and collaboration, eliminate other meetings, identify and remove impediments to development, track progress by reviewing and updating the burndown chart, synchronize teamwork and improve the development team’s level of knowledge.
