Agile Scrum Masters: How To Get The Most From Your Daily Scrum Meeting
Many businesses are now adopting agile project management methodologies, like lean and scrum. Agile projects focus closely on flexible, collaborative approaches to product development. Although agile workflow is less rigid than a traditional waterfall project, it's still vital that a scrum master robustly steers the project team through each stage of the process, including the daily scrum meeting. Find out how the scrum master can make sure the daily scrum supports the project workflow, and learn how to use this daily session to deliver a quality product as effectively as possible.
Set the right agenda
A daily scrum meeting (sometimes called a stand-up meeting) is generally only effective when you're tough with time. Aim to spend no longer than fifteen minutes on the meeting each day, and work to a strict agenda where every attendee describes:
- What he or she did yesterday
- What he or she will do today
- Any problems or impediments he or she needs help with
Make sure everyone in the meeting sticks to a strict time limit. Use an object (like a medicine ball or kettle bell) that you have to hold if you want to speak. This will increase urgency and will stop people cutting across each other. If necessary, you should call time out on a conversation, and ask the team to take the issue offline. The focus in a scrum meeting is speed and information and you need to make sure the team has a clear action plan for the day.
Make sure everyone is involved
A scrum meeting should focus on collaboration. Every attendee should speak and have something relevant to say, and it's vital that one person (such as the scrum master) doesn't dominate the conversation. As the scrum master, you may initially need to steer the conversation, but everyone must learn to speak up and contribute.
You should work hard to encourage the right behaviours. In some cases, you may decide not to attend until the end of the meeting, when you can simply ask for a team overview. If you do attend the meeting, make sure you don't make eye contact with the team as they speak. This will encourage everyone to talk directly to other people in the group, and won't make them feel as though they are just reporting to you (their leader).
Target impediments
The daily scrum meeting should focus on impediments. These are the things that stop the project from progressing, and can seriously hamper workflow. Make sure each person describes his or her problem, and then gets the rest of the team to consider possible solutions. Above all, make sure somebody agrees to own each impediment, and update the workflow system or task board to show this. It's vital that anybody in the team can quickly look for details of all known impediments at any time.
Use a parking lot
It's easy for an enthusiastic team to start discussing things in too much detail. In some cases, a debate may follow about the right approach to take. This is not part of the scrum agenda. If the team starts to focus on an issue that does not immediately influence your workflow, call time out, write the issue on a white board or flip chart (your "parking lot"), and leave it until a better time.
Make sure you refer back to the parking lot when you need to. Some procurement software allows you to record these issues and set a reminder for the team when it's relevant to discuss the problem.
Regularly update your task board
Any scrum master relies heavily on his or her task board. This is the place where you record progress, and move each user through the standard product backlog item life cycle. Users will move through this work flow on a daily basis, so your reporting tools must show this. Team members may come in and out of the project team at any time, so it's important that they refer to an accurate task board, whether you use a white board, a wall or agile software.
The daily scrum (or stand-up) meeting is a vital part of any agile project. Make sure these daily sessions add value to your project, and focus your scrum team on the right tasks and behaviours.