This Is Not Good: A Hijacked Daily Scrum For Status Updates

During the Daily Scrum, one line manager is always present. Of course, the Daily Scrum is open, but it is not the intention that others will interfere with the content of the meeting.

As a Scrum Master, I had an issue with one of the line managers involved during the Daily Scrum and interfered with every issue. Sometimes, it was even so bad he was standing in front of the Sprint Board and was leading the whole conversation. He asked the team about every sticky on the board and asked for an update about the status.

During this meeting, the whole team was answering questions from the line manager. Not one exciting conversation between the team members arose.

When this line manager left the room, I asked the team if someone could tell me their plan for that day. Of course, they couldn’t! None of the team members could explain what they planned for that day according to the sprint goal.

Not a status update

I have seen this a lot during my career in Scrum and Agile environments. Sometimes, it’s a line manager who hijacked the Daily Scrum; sometimes, the team doesn’t do anything more than give a status update to the Scrum Master or Product Owner.

The Scrum Guide in 2017 stated:

Some Development Teams will use questions; some will be more discussion-based. Here is an example of what might be used: ? What did I do yesterday that helped the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? ? What will I do today to help the Development Team meet the Sprint Goal? ? Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Development Team from meeting the Sprint Goal?

And this part of the Scrum guide was awful, in my opinion. This makes a lot of Daily Scrums just another status update. Every team member - almost mindlessly - answers the three provided questions like it is an exam and continues to work again. The result: no good discussions about the work, no plan, and most developers are disappointed they have to allocate time for this meeting.

Fortunately, we do not live in 2017 anymore. The Scrum Guide is a work in progress; new insights are also part of new versions. The current (2020 version) describes the Daily Scrum as follows:

Daily Scrum The purpose of the Daily Scrum is to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog as necessary, adjusting the upcoming planned work.

The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team. To reduce complexity, it is held at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint. If the Product Owner or Scrum Master are actively working on items in the Sprint Backlog, they participate as Developers.

The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work. This creates focus and improves self-management.

Daily Scrums improve communications, identify impediments, promote quick decision-making, and consequently eliminate the need for other meetings.

The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet throughout the day for more detailed discussions about adapting or re-planning the rest of the Sprint’s work.

This is the whole text about the Daily Scrum in the Scrum Guide. As you see, nothing is mentioned about the three questions anymore. This sentence makes clear how a Daily Scrum should be structured:

The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work.

As you see, the developers select the structure and techniques, not a line manager, Scrum Master, Product Owner, or some organizational requirement, but the developer decides on that! And actually, that is very logical!

For the developers

The Daily Scrum is a meeting for the developers, not for someone else. Sure, some part of the meeting will be a status update, but that is for the team to see where they are standing now. From there, the central part is to plan for the next day of work.

Now, I met some Product owners who felt they needed to contribute to the Daily Scrum. They thought it was necessary to collaborate on the ‘day plan’ so the team would work on the right priorities. Let me be clear: this is the way to go if you want the Scrum team to return to status meetings! Please continue reading if you prefer that the team work independently at the best effort.

As Product Owner, you are involved in the Scrum planning; after that, the team is in charge of what’s on the Sprint Backlog. As Product Owner, I understand that you sometimes need to set priorities during the sprint, but that isn’t up to you! The team is in charge of deciding about the priorities during the sprint.

That also counts for other people in the organization. As I said, the Daily Scrum is mainly an open meeting where everybody can listen to this short planning session of the team, but they are not allowed to get into discussion with the developers during this meeting. The team is focused on making a good plan, so don’t disturb them!

A plan for the day

When I was helping a new team, I asked the team about their goal for the Daily Scrum. “To give you an answer to the three questions," one of the team members told me.

Screw you, you Scrum Guide 2017!

“But when do you, as a team, decide what you gonna work today?” I asked.

Of course, I knew the answer: “We do that during the day.”

And just that conflicts with the definition in the Scrum Guide 2020:

Daily Scrums improve communications, identify impediments, promote quick decision-making, and consequently eliminate the need for other meetings.

One of the purposes of the Daily Scrum is to eliminate the need for other meetings consistently. If you do the Daily correctly, you shouldn’t have any need for additional meetings about planning. Okay, that’s a little black and white, but you get the point!

So, please stop hijacking your Daily Scrums by people who just want a status update. If they want to see what the team is working on, they must see what is happening at the Sprint Board. If they have questions about that, the Product Owner and Scrum Master are happy to answer them!

Some takeaways

As a Scrum Master, you must teach your team how to do a Daily Scrum correctly. Let them focus on the goal of that meeting: a plan for the next day.

Help the team when other people than developers try to hijack the meeting to get status updates. When I see people attending the meeting, I always tell them they can be here but not talk. Yes, I even tell that to the highest director in the company!

Use the retrospective if you find out that developers need extra meetings during the day to finetune their plans. This might signal that they don’t fully get out of the Daily Scrum what they need to get out.

One of the reasons could be a manager attending the Daily Scrum, preventing the team from speaking out freely. If so, you must remove that person from the meeting.

I sometimes ask my teams, “Do we have a plan for today?”. Sometimes, I acknowledge some team members who didn’t feel right about that. Then, I ask what they need to feel more comfortable with the plan. This almost always opens a discussion that ends with a better plan.

Some last note about the 15-minute timebox. It is important to keep the meeting short, but what if you find out the team needs more time? I would recommend to keep the meeting going. What does the meeting make sense if you cut it to 15 minutes without a plan? Then, you spend 15 minutes with not results. In my opinion, a meeting of 20 minutes, with a plan, is way more valuable than an excellent timeboxed 15-minute meeting without a plan!