Daily Scrum and the Myth of the Status Report

How many times have you heard that statement: "Daily Scrum is not a status report!"? I guess if you're working or used to working in an Agile environment or implementing Scrum framework, probably you heard that a lot. Personally, I'm hearing it almost every single day through different media. If it happened that a day went without hearing it, it'd be a huge deal!

What I noticed recently is that it's NOT clear enough to everyone what it means by saying it's not a status report and what's behind it! And if someone in the team managed to state that he is working on whatever and will continue on it for the day, is that a good example that represents the status reporting anti-pattern?

First, let's define What is Status Reporting. It has 2 words: status and report, right? Status: is the condition about something specific. Report: the update or reporting action itself that usually comes with updating someone or reporting to someone. The 2 words combined together will be: reporting the condition about something specific to a specific person(s).

Let's move on and explore Why someone would need to report his status? Maybe to share an important update? or to get some feedback? or to raise a flag about something? or to show off the work that has been done? Can you see that there could be an endless set of reasons why someone wants to give an update!

Next, is to Whom a status is being reported? To a manager? or a colleague? a team member in another team? or a friend? Again, you can get countless possibilities.

How a status can be reported? Maybe verbally? written? through email? or a voice message? with a group of people? or individually?

Last but not least is When a status can be reported? Early morning? in the standup only? maybe afternoon? or if you met your manager during break time? or by the end of your day for example?

So, all of the above are different sorts of status reporting that will take place in one way or another. And guess what? it might be helpful to share those updates with some people for alignment and planning purposes. For example, a developer finished a development task and the user story is ready for testing. Should he/she be punished because he mentioned that he has finished the task and coordinating with his teammates about it?! Instead, he/she is informing the team about it so that testing folks can take it from there.

1st role:

Not all status updates are useless and a waste of time! do you agree?

2nd role:

Differentiation between a healthy status update and vs not is very important. And I think that's the core point of the debate. For example, during the daily scrum, if the team is sharing their updates together to align on their next set of stuff to do according to their sprint goal and to have a good plan for their day, I'm wondering what's wrong with that?! Or if a team member finished his task and is open to new work and he is reporting to his colleagues that he has some bandwidth and can provide help in whatever, is that something bad and that team member should stay silent for example because he shouldn't report his status to anyone?

Example of the unrecommended Status Report meeting:

A project manager is attending the daily Scrum to collect status from developers to update his project plan or timeline. That is what can be called a real status report following the traditional project management techniques. Because in that example the goal behind the standup became NOT for the team to adjust and align on their daily activities towards the sprint goal, but the whole purpose is changed to report status to someone for his/ her awareness and the team comes next (if not last). And definitely, that approach is not recommended.

Sometimes Scrum Masters who earned the role just by being a former project manager will fall into that trap. That's why it's recommended to let the team lead the standup conversation and as a Scrum Master, you can be an observer for facilitation if needed. This will help the team in self-management and will reduce the chances of having the unrecommended way of status reporting to take place.

Summary:

Status reporting has different formats and shapes. And it's very important to differentiate between the good and bad ones. Good ones tend toward team alignment and planning for their day. Bad ones by having a central person who is collecting status from everyone for whatever purposes. So, the key thing that differentiates good vs bad ones is the goal behind it. If you're the Scrum Master and you believe you're the only one who should run the daily Scrum, step back and let the team lead that call, please. Daily Scrum is for developers only in the 1st place and Scrum Master's role there is to remove impediments. Avoid inviting project managers and other leadership levels to the daily standup to ensure the updates being shared by the team are useful and meant only for the team's alignment and planning on their daily activities toward a goal.

#agile #scrum #dailyscrum #dailystandup #kanban #software #softwareengineering #productdevelopment #teamwork #projectmanagement