The Daily Scrum is a brief daily planning event by the Developers to inspect their work and the progress they are making toward the Sprint Goal that will result in a Product Increment. The Developers created their Sprint plan or Sprint Backlog in Sprint Planning at the beginning of the Sprint. However, this plan is not static. It’s updated as work is completed, and as new information is discovered. The Developers adapt, adjust, and update the Sprint Backlog by adding or removing tasks based on what they learned and what’s needed to accomplish the Sprint Goal and deliver the Product Increment.
The Daily Scrum occurs every day at the same time and is timeboxed to 15 minutes per day. Traditionally, each Developer talks about what they did yesterday to help accomplish the Sprint goal, what they plan to do today to help accomplish the Sprint goal, and what’s in the way that might prevent them from accomplishing the Spring goal. This approach helped the team focus and finish the event within the timebox. However, this format morphed the Daily Scrum into a status meeting instead of its intended purpose.
The Daily Scrum is not a status meeting. Neither the Product Owner nor the Scrum Master is required at the Daily Scrum. It’s a daily planning event for the Developers by the Developers to plan their day and figure out how they are going to collaborate together and support each other to do the necessary work and deliver on the Sprint Goal and produce a Product Increment.
The Daily Scrum is also not the place to raise impediments. Impediments are raised immediately when they arise. The Daily Scrum is the place to make sure that all impediments or blockers are visible and transparent and that someone is actively working on resolving them.
The Daily Scrum is also not the place for deep-dive discussions. Whoever needs to stick around to clarify an issue or help can do so in ad-hoc meetings set up right after the Daily Scrum.
And that’s the Daily Scrum. A timeboxed daily event by the Developers and for the Developers to plan their day and adjust their Sprint Backlog based on the progress they are making towards the Sprint Goal in order to successfully deliver a Product Increment at the end of the Sprint.
For more details, sign up for an upcoming foundational ScrumMaster® (CSM®) class or a Certified Product Owner® (CSPO®) class or Certified Scrum Developer® (CSD®) class.
Next check out the entire Scrum in a Nutshell series:
