Get in FRONT of the Daily Scrum

The daily scrum is one of the five events defined in the scrum framework. This gathering happens at the same time every day and lays out the plan for the day’s worth of work.

The purpose of the event is to inspect progress toward the sprint goal. The scrum team connects on needs, impediments, and other matters that will help them move forward on their tasks. 

Why You May Need to Get in Front of the Daily Scrum

With new and experienced scrum teams alike, the scrum master may encounter resistance to this daily event. Has anyone on your team ever said:

• We don’t make major changes every day, then why meet every day? 
• I think meeting twice a week is enough to stay informed about the progress.
• I have a conflict today, will be emailing the team on my progress.
• We were just discussing on our group chat about the ticket I was working on, so everyone knows my update, I will be skipping today’s meeting.

Have you heard the aforementioned sentences or something similar when you ask your team to join/attend the daily scrum? Yes, that’s what I thought! 

As scrum masters, oftentimes we have to wear our teacher’s hat to help our teams understand the “WHY” behind these daily sync-ups. 

I have come up with an acronym that I use to help my teams understand the importance of daily scrum. I call it “FRONT”:

F – Focused

Every single day when we sync up with our team members, we are ensuring that each one of us is only focused on tasks that will help us deliver value during that sprint and meet our sprint goal. If a team member has begun working on something else, we help them get back on track and stay focused on the tasks in our sprint backlog.

R - Red flag

Every team member has an opportunity to immediately raise a red flag if they have an impediment or achieving the sprint goal may be in jeopardy. We don’t want team members waiting until it’s the 8th day of a 10-day sprint to inform the group that they have been stuck on something for the past four days! Instead, we encourage our team members to raise a red flag right away so that we can collectively think about how to resolve them. 

O – Openness 

This is one of the five scrum values; we encourage our teams to be open about the work and the challenges they are facing. Openness leads to Transparency, which is one of the three pillars of scrum. With transparency, people don’t miss critical conversations or decisions. Everyone is aware of the progress and there are no surprises on the last day of the sprint.

N – Next 24 hours

Every day the team meets and plans for the next 24 hours. Until they meet again the next day, they know exactly who is working on which priority. An actionable plan is in place, which increases self-organization among team members.

T – Team bonding

Every day when we meet and sync up with one another, we get to know each other slightly better and it helps build camaraderie. What you hear and say in a meeting will sometimes help solve a problem or at least makes one aware of the impediments other team members are facing. Gradually it creates a safe environment where it becomes easy to ask for help or openly admit that you are stuck on something. Daily scrums help improve communications, identify obstacles, promote quick decision-making, and subsequently abolish the need for other meetings. All of this leads to solid team bonding.

So next time you get pushback from one of your team members on attending the daily scrum, try getting in FRONT of it! 

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More Advice for New Scrum Masters

If you’re a Scrum Alliance member interested in real-world advice from scrum masters who have been there, please read more at the Learning Journey course, Advice for New Scrum Masters. If you’re not a member but an agilist who wants to know more, check out this article about how scrum masters build good habits.