Day 11: Daily Scrum

Today is #sprintmeeting day! Every day is now actually.

This is something you run every day of your sprint. The sprint planning meeting we had yesterday carved the work that we were going to do this #sprint up into a manageable piece, now we are going to break it down into what can we accomplish today.

To any of the #projectmanager hopefuls and #transitioningteachers out there, this is where you shine at the most. You are already used to planning and executing on your own and having to take a classroom through it to boot. If you can handle 8th Graders, you can handle PhDs who have pet projects of their own they want to pursue.

What is a Sprint Meeting?

Essentially consider it a 15-minute (or less) pep talk you have standing up where you plan out the day and get ahead of any roadblocks you are going to experience. When you are both the project manager and the team, you must wear many hats. This is your chance to make sure you are wearing them all for at least a moment without falling prey to just wearing the one you feel the most successful at. *

The #scrum guide talks about the #dailyscrum being to inspect progress and adapt backlog and adjust upcoming planned work. It allows you to pick whatever structure/technique your team wants to apply if they focus on progress towards the goal and produce an actionable plan for the chunk of work to accomplish. This isn’t a status meeting. We all know those are usually a drag.

This also isn’t a problem-solving session. It’s a problem-identifying session. If you know you want to apply to Help Scout but don’t have a network to escalate your resume to the top of the stack, it's okay to just identify that as a need without googling networking strategies or searching on Linked in for who their recruiters are. ?If you want to also apply to Shift Paradigm but are unsure of their culture and how they operate. You can put it down to research it later as a task to make sure that it’s the home you want.

So, pull up your #backlog and stand up. Yes, the Daily Scrums are held standing! Start a timer it keeps you honest to not blow the whole day on planning but pivot later to execution.

Then do this:

1.???Read your goal for the week out loud to yourself.

2.???Ask (also out loud) each of these questions in turn:

• What did I work on yesterday?
• What am I going to work on today?
• Are there any roadblocks for me?

3.???Close the scrum in your signature style**

No need for formality when it is just that simple. For those of you learning Project Management, there are a few methods that use this stand-up meeting but the biggest difference between the two is this #kanban Standup’s focus on tasks. #Scrum focuses on people. Kanban focuses on minimizing time spent on tasks at all stages. Scrum focuses on moving as quickly through the tasks without suffering quality as possible using members owning the tasks and moving them through to the next column by the next meeting.?

I would say steal whatever style best suits you, but I do feel that Scrum is a better one to fit our purposes. The whole goal every day is to move those tasks over to the done column. You can use a #scrumboard if you have dedicated space where you work on your #jobsearch stuff. During your #sprintplanning meeting, just make three columns and grab your post-its. ***

Three columns are: To Do, Doing and Done. If you want to get fancy you can call the middle one “Progress”. A lot of teams also break it into rows. If things need to have a testing or review phase, a column is added for that too.

That’s it! If it seems simple it’s because it is. The whole point of the daily scrum was to help establish a team culture of doing, keep everyone performing and cut the wasted time out of meetings to keep the ball rolling. Now for every person that is not you that you add, the structure stays simple but the nuances get complex. This is where knowing people really comes into play and a lot of what people transitioning to Project Management already have from other areas.

As always, please comment on what you find useful if you would like this sort of material in a longer-term format and hit the like button/share if you think someone else may benefit.

Stay fantastic!

Bexs

*Sometimes if you are good at planning, you can make all the plans but none of the follow-through. ?

** My signature style is clapping and shouting “Waaaaghhh”. For any #Warhammer fans you know why. Yes, I also do this one when I am operating alone like this.

***Hint: Project Managers love post-its. Get quality ones. Get sticky ones. The worst thing in the world is walking in and seeing your entire scrum on the floor. Shouting “Floor is lava! Save the Scrum!” is the only way to rectify that situation from my experience.?

Links and Past Posts:

1. Session Zero, Day 1: Getting going with User Stories (check comments!)
2. Session Zero, Day 2: Tracking the User Stories and Getting Main Values
3. Session Zero, Day 3: Plan for Life Event Interruptions
4. Session Zero, Day 4: Get a List of Companies You are Already Connected To
5. Session Zero, Day 5: Job Search Charter
6. Planning Week, Day 6: ... Dreaded Resumes
7. Planning Week, Day 7: Company Shortlist
8. Planning Week, Day 8: Agile Job Search
9. Planning Week, Day 9: Recap, Claps and Sprint
10. Sprint 1, Day 10: Backlog and Sprint Planning

Templates and Forms:

• Job Search Charter
• User Stories Template