Keep your team in sync with a daily standup in Scrum.
[Agile standup purpose and agenda]
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“Wait, there’s a meeting every day?” That was the question I was interrupted with while explaining the rhythm of Scrum to a new team. This concern is both familiar and understandable. Ask almost anyone if they want more meetings, and their answer is a clear “no.”
You may be asking why Scrum has all these meetings and do we really need them all?
Those are great questions to dive into. In this post, I’m focusing on the Daily Scrum, also called the Daily Standup. It’s one of the first meetings new teams ask about because it happens every day.
The Daily Standup is a brief daily check-in for the Scrum team. When I say brief, I mean it. Think 15 minutes or less. It’s called a standup because it’s so short you don’t need to sit down.
This article will cover four essential topics for the daily scrum
- How the daily standup keeps your team focused.
- Who participates in the daily standup.
- The agenda for the daily standup.
- How the daily standup save you time.
The Daily Scrum/Standup keeps the team focused and collaborative.
Every day for fifteen minutes, the development team inspects the previous day's work, plans the next day’s work and identifies any barriers to getting things done. You may be thinking, “Really? A meeting every day?” The Standup keeps the team in sync by making the work visible.
In a sense, every day, they review, re-prioritize and re-plan the work for the sprint. And all that in 15 minutes. These daily adjustments keep the team very focused on what to do, and it also immediately highlights problems to address quickly. By staying focus the team is able to move the PBI (product backlog items) that are now in the sprint backlog from to-do to doing to done.
This clarity often reduces the overall number of meetings and communication. The team stays up to date on their work, what obstacles they face, and what changes they make. This focus and agility significantly increase the team’s effectiveness. Doing the right work without getting stuck on obstacles creates an incredible ROI for a 15-minute meeting.
The Standup keeps the team in sync by making the work visible.
The Standup is held at the same time and place each day. This simple consistency removes the need for communication and coordination of schedules, and it quickly becomes an essential part of the team's rhythm.
The whole Scrum Team participates in the Daily Standup.
Everyone in the Scrum team comes to the Standup. But it’s not just an attendance thing, and participation is critical. Let’s walk through how each role participates.
The development team sets the structure for the daily standup
The dev team is the ones who do most all of the talking because they are doing the work. They set the meeting structure and decide what questions they will ask or what order they will go in. They provide updates and ask questions of one another.
The scrum master attends and helps the team learn to run the daily scrum.
The meeting is the team’s responsibility and they are accountable. If the team identifies a problem and immediately goes into problem-solving mode, the Scrum master might remind them about the focus of the daily Scrum and ask if they have enough clarity to wait until after the meeting to continue creating a solution.
The scrum master is also paying attention to obstacles that surface. I would usually keep a list of what I hear during the meeting and immediately follow up with people to see how we could get them unstuck.
The product owner is there to listen and respond.
The product owner doesn’t need to give any updates, but they still have two critical roles during the meeting.
- The product owner can answer questions from the development team about the work.
- The product owner listens to understand how the work is going and better understand what obstacles the team is encountering.
Keep the daily standup to just the Scrum team.
It can be tempting for other leaders in the organization to want to attend the Standup, and I don’t recommend this. It changes the environment from a collaborative engagement to status updates that feel more like reading a presentation than solving a problem. This meeting is for the team, not the organization, and those leaders can attend the sprint review to see how the work progresses.
If the team is colocated, the meeting should happen next to the Scrum board, where all the work can be visible and actively referenced during the session. If they are a distributed team, the board should be visible to everyone. I’ve found the Standup to be a critical cadence for keeping distributed teams in sync.
Related Guides
The Daily Scrum has a clear agenda.
The daily standup is not a complicated meeting. Everyone on the development team answers three questions:
- What have I finished?
- What will I complete today?
- Is anything getting in my way?
I’ve seen these questions tweaked at times, but they serve essentially the same functions of making the work visible and actively evaluating the progress.
It’s common for one team member to share they are having trouble with something, and another team member says, “I can help with that.” That’s all they need to discuss at that moment, and the meeting can keep moving forward.
These questions help focus the conversation and move the meeting along. It will take some work to learn to keep the meeting to 15 minutes. The discussion is short, light, and focused. If the team needs to address an obstacle, write it down and tackle it after completing the daily scrum.
Inevitably, someone will ask, “Can we just provide our updates in Slack?” Don’t do it. The shared presence and focus of the Standup are critical for keeping the team aligned, and this just isn’t the same in a Slack thread. I have seen teams use Slack to support their standup by posting their answers as they share them. This practice is helpful because it provides a place for those follow-up conversations. But the danger is that team members start having a side convo and are no longer engaged with the whole team.
Scrum has a lot of meetings and it can be hard to keep them straight, especially when you're getting started.
The Scrum meeting checklist has all the details you need to run effective Scrum meetings.
The Daily Scrum decreases your time in meetings.
Meetings are notoriously inefficient. We’ve all been to meetings that could have been an email, and I am continually trying to shorten and reduce my number of appointments. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, adding this meeting lowers the team’s overall meeting load.
I see two key areas where the daily Scrum reduces meeting time.
- Status updates during your weekly team meetings. The weekly team meeting seems to be a staple of traditional teams, and status updates usually take a significant amount of time. These updates are now happening daily, and the team has a better awareness of how things are going than they ever had. In reality, this whole weekly team meeting is no longer needed.
- Those meetings that aren’t on your calendar. What meetings am I talking about? Hint, they happen at your desk, where you were trying to work. Interruptions are exceptionally costly to productivity, and the daily Scrum helps reduce interruptions by concentrating those conversations within the meeting itself.
So let’s look at the math here.
15 minutes * 5 days a week = 75 minutes used.
10-minute interruption * 8 times a week = 80 minutes
30 minutes of status updates during your weekly team meetings.
80 + 30 = 120 minutes saved.
I tried to underestimate how many interruptions people experience on traditional teams, and I also didn’t include the lost effectiveness from the interruption itself. It takes you 25 minutes to get back on track after an interruption. Add that in, and you’re saving another 200 minutes per week!
Time savings don’t come just from meetings. Time is saved by not having team members stuck or working on something no longer needed. That kind of inefficiency can go on way too long in traditional teams.
Related Guides
Action Plan
Keep Learning about Scrum
I hope this helped you get a good overview of the Daily Scrum. If you want to learn more about the other meetings or roles in Scrum, check out the links below. Or, if you want it all in one place, see the What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.
Frequently Asked Questions
Scrum events overview
What are the Scrum events?
The rhythm of scrum consists of various events.
- Sprint planning
- Daily standup
- Backlog refinement
- Sprint review
- Sprint retrospective
- The sprint
The last on the list is sometimes debated as to whether or not it’s actually a scrum event. I include it because it's critical to creating a cadence of work for the team.
Learn more about the rhythm of scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What scrum events are timeboxed?
Most scrum events are timeboxed relative to the length of the sprint:
- Sprint planning: 2 hours / sprint week.
- Daily standup: 15 minutes.
- Backlog refinement: 2 hours / sprint week.
- Sprint review: 1 hour / sprint week.
- Retrospective: 45 minutes / sprint week.
Just because an event has a timebox doesn’t mean it needs to be that long. The timebox is the maximum time allowed for the event.
Learn more about the different scrum events. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
When should scrum events be held?
Scrum events are generally held in the following order
- Sprint planning: Held at the very beginning of a sprint.
- Daily standup: Every day at the same time and place.
- Backlog refinement: Flexible. Held at whatever time and frequency best serves the team.
- Sprint review: Held on the last day of the sprint.
- Retrospective: Very last event of the sprint.
The backlog refinement session is unique in that it can be held anytime.
Explore further the events of scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Which scrum event is most important?
I included this because it is frequently asked, but the question misunderstands the importance of the scrum events. It’s like asking which of your limbs is most important. You may be able to answer, but they are really all critical.
If pressed for an answer, the daily scrum probably has the greatest impact on the team's effectiveness.
Learn more about the events in scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Middle of a sprint
What is a daily standup?
The Daily standup is a brief 15-minute daily check-in for the Scrum team to do three things:
- Inspects the previous day's work.
- Plans the current day’s work.
- Identifies any barriers to getting things done.
It’s called a standup because it’s so short you don’t need to sit down.
Learn how to keep your team in sync with a daily standup. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What is scrum backlog refinement?
During the backlog refinement session, the team previews upcoming work to ensure the following:
- Outcomes are clearly defined.
- Supporting information is visible.
- Resources are accessible.
There is flexibility for when to hold the backlog refinement session.
Learn more about how to run a backlog refinement session. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Scrum events purpose
What is the goal of each Scrum event?
- Sprint planning: Clarify the direction and goal for the sprint.
- Daily standup: Everyone on the team gains updated visibility into everyone’s work.
- Backlog refinement: Understand upcoming work.
- Sprint review: Present finished work to stakeholders for feedback.
- Sprint retrospective: Review how the team works and make necessary adjustments.
Understand the purpose of the scrum meetings. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Which scrum events facilitate inspection and adaptation?
Inspection and adaptation (along with transparency) are pillars of scrum, so all events involve them.
- Sprint planning: the purpose and work of the sprint are inspected.
- Daily standup: progress toward the sprint goal is inspected, and adjustments are made.
- Backlog refinement: upcoming work is inspected, and PBIs are adapted.
- Sprint review: delivered work is inspected, and upcoming work is adapted
- Retrospective: team health and interactions are inspected, and norms or plans are adapted.
Learn more about the role of events in scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Which scrum event is for process improvement?
Process improvement aligns closely with the scrum pillars of transparency, inspection and adaptation.
- Sprint planning: How do we improve the product?
- Daily standup: How do we improve our approach to the sprint goal?
- Backlog refinement: How do we improve the quality of the product backlog?
- Sprint review: How do we improve the functionality being delivered?
- Retrospective: How do we improve how our team works together?
Out of all the events, the retrospective is the most focused on process improvement.
Learn more about events in scrum. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
What is the goal of the scrum of scrum event?
The scrum of scrums is an extra scrum event used when multiple scrum teams are collaborating together on a single product.
The scrum of scrums follows a similar pattern to the daily scrum session. The session allows the teams to update each other on what has been done, what obstacles have been encountered, and what to do next.
The scrum of scrums allows those teams to stay in sync and account for dependencies that bridge across teams. When facilitated well with healthy teams the scrum of scrum can even create collective ownership you see in self organizing teams.
If multiple scrum teams are collaborating on a single product then ideally both teams care more about it the product as a whole succeeds versus just caring if they did their part. The transparency, evaluation and adaptation from the scrum or scrums can make this possible.
To learn more explore the most common terms in a Scrum glossary.
Facilitating scrum events
How to facilitate scrum events?
Scrum events have a clear purpose and agenda but are still very interactive. Facilitation of scrum events is at its best when everyone is engaged, asking or responding to questions. All events are timeboxed, so the facilitator must ensure the team is always moving toward the goal.
Learn more about team member's responsibilities during scrum events. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
How to improve scrum events?
Three strategies for increasing participation in scrum meetings are
- Clearly state the goal. Sometimes people don’t engage because they are unsure about the purpose.
- Use facilitation games. There are many facilitation exercises available for the scrum events.
- Invite feedback. Inspection is a pillar of scrum. Ask the team for feedback on what went well and how to improve.
Learn more about everyone’s roles and responsibilities during the scrum events. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Who facilitates (or owns) scrum events?
Scrum cultivates shared ownership for all the events, but each still has a facilitator.
- Sprint planning: Scrum master.
- Daily standup: Development team.
- Backlog refinement: Product owner.
- Sprint review: Product owner.
- Retrospective: Scrum master.
Learn more about everyone’s roles and responsibilities during the scrum events. Then explore the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
Does the scrum master facilitate all the scrum events?
The scrum master primarily facilitates two scrum events:
- Sprint planning
- The retrospective
The scrum master can help facilitate other meetings while a new team is beginning to learn scrum.
Learn more about roles during scrum events. Then browse the most common terms in a Scrum glossary and learn what is Scrum.
