Daily Scrum Meeting

The daily scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed meeting that occurs at the same time, in the same place, each working day. The purpose of the meeting is to give the Scrum team an opportunity to plan its work for the next 24-hours and to determine if there are any impediments that might prevent it from achieving the sprint or product goal. The meeting is essential to good communication.

Effective daily scrum meetings should be held at the same time and at the same place every day. It is common practice to have the meeting be in the morning, or as soon as the team is all together so that the team may plan its day.

Want more advice on an effective Daily Scrum? Try 4 Secrets to an Effective Daily Scrum.

Who Attends the Daily Scrum?

All developers, or delivery people on the Scrum team, are required to attend. If a person cannot make the meeting, they should provide status to the team prior to the meeting in a format that is agreed upon by the team.

Remote teams have unique challenges when it comes to daily scrums, to learn more read Make Your Remote Daily Scrums More Productive.

The 3-Question Approach to Daily Scrum

Many teams use a 3-question approach to running their daily scrum meeting. In that approach, each team member should respond to the three questions in the daily scrum:

  • What have you done since the last daily scrum regarding this project?
  • What will you do between now and the next daily scrum meeting regarding this project?
  • What impedes you from performing your work as effectively as possible?

The daily scrum meeting is not a time for deep dives like architecture design, deep discussions of problems, or noise. The ScrumMaster is responsible for moving the reporting along briskly, from person to person.

If your team finds they are struggling to complete tasks during the sprint, and that information isn’t evident in the daily scrum, try adding a fourth question to your daily scrum.