STEP 5

Daily Scrum

The Daily Scrum is another of our inspect and adapt loops. It’s timeboxed to 15 minutes. As a Scrum Master, I take this timebox very seriously. When I speak with people who have decided scrum doesn’t work for them, it’s often due to this meeting running long. Who wants to be in an extra endless meeting every day? Let this thing run on for 45 minutes, and you’ll end up with people who hate Scrum.

 

The meeting is simple—the team answers 3 questions:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What do you plan to do today?
• Do you have any impediments?

 

The goal of this meeting isn’t to blurt out a status report and fill our time with another meeting. It’s there to help team members synchronize their work:

Oh, I can help with that impediment. Let’s talk after the Scrum.

You’re done coding that feature? Great, I can get an automated regression test added to the suite for it.’

While the Scrum Master is there to listen for impediments he may have to help the team remove, he doesn’t run the meeting. It’s the team members’ meeting, and they self-organize to get it done.