Daily Scrum Meeting Guide

In this guide, we’ll discuss the questions each team member should answer in a daily scrum meeting, rules, and who attends the meeting, among other topics.  Continue reading for more information on daily scrum meetings.

 

What is a Daily Scrum Meeting?

A daily scrum meeting, also known as a daily scrum, is a short meeting for a team to inspect progress towards a sprint’s goal and if necessary, adapt the backlog. It’s usually held at the same time, but can be run asynchronously with tools like Jell. Each team can choose the structure for their meeting, so long as it focuses on the progress of the sprint goal.

Daily Scrum Questions

The default questions to ask each team member in a daily scrum meeting are:1. What did you do yesterday? 2. What will you do today? 3. Are there any impediments in your way?Using these three questions helps provide an update of completed work since the last daily scrum, allows the team to analyze the tasks for the day that will contribute to the sprint goal, and helps identify any blockers the team is running into.Nothing says you must use the questions above. If using different questions works best for your team, Jell makes it super easy to customize them. See how in the video below.

Daily Scrum Meeting Rules

To help your team run a smooth daily scrum, there are a few rules your team should follow:

• Same time and place
• Meeting should be held daily (hence the name)
• Time-boxed to 15 minutes
• All team members attend
• Only the Scrum Team may attend

Who Should Attend?

All members of the team who contribute to the sprint goal should attend and participate. This typically involves the Product Owner, Scrum Master, development team, and any other individual contributors working on tasks that sprint.

Daily Scrum vs. Daily Standup

A daily standup is similar to a daily scrum. Daily standup does not have the restrictions and guidance from the Scrum guide and it is used to check how things are going and if anyone needs help. Participants usually stand for the daily standup meeting (so that the meeting doesn’t run too long!), and that is where it gets its name. Daily standup and daily scrum are sometimes used interchangeably, even though they vary slightly.

How Jell Can Help

With Jell’s Daily Standup feature, you and your team can easily run your daily scrum meetings faster and easier than doing them in person. If your team happens to be across multiple time zones or in a remote environment, Jell allows your team to run your daily scrum meeting asynchronously. You can customize when your team submits their standup by sending a customized reminder.Configure the questions you want to ask your team. The Scrum Guide does not say you must use the three questions above. You can choose two, use more than three or use your own questions. Jell gives you complete control over the questions you ask your team and makes it very easy for them to answer. Choose from Text, List, Multiple Choice, or Number style questions.Jell lets you and your team be notified when another team member submits their standup. This way, everyone knows what the team is working on towards the sprint goal. At the end of each day (at the time you choose), you and your team will get a daily digest email of everyone’s daily scrum. The daily digest includes everyone’s answers and lets you know who hasn’t submitted their daily scrum/standup.

FAQ

Why should the product owner attend the daily scrum?The product owner may attend the daily scrum, but only the development team members may participate. By attending, it gives the product owner an opportunity to understand the progress toward the sprint goal.What is the purpose of daily scrum meeting?The purpose of a daily scrum meeting is to inspect progress towards achieving a sprint goal, adapt the backlog is necessary, and surface and solve for any roadblocks.What is discussed in a scrum meeting?In a scrum meeting, the team discusses progress made towards the sprint goal, the tasks that have been completed since the last meeting, tasks for the day, and any roadblocks they may be encountering.How do you run a scrum meeting?A daily scrum meeting should be held at the same time and should be time-boxed to 15 minutes. When running a daily scrum meeting, the team should focus on discussing progress being made towards the sprint goal. Only the development team may participate, even if the product manager or other stakeholders attend the meeting.Who participates in a daily scrum?Only the development team participates in a daily scrum. Although the product owner and stakeholders may attend. The Scrum Master is responsible for enforcing the rule that only the development team participates in the daily scrum meeting.What does Scrum stand for?Scrum is not an acronym. Scrum is a framework that aims to help teams work towards a sprint goal. The term ‘scrum’ is borrowed from a paper written by Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka in which they compare high-performing development teams to rugby teams moving the ball up the field.When is the best time to do the daily scrum meeting?The best time to do a daily scrum meeting is in the morning. Doing it in the morning helps plan out tasks for the day’s work. The meeting should be held at the same time every day. If your team is remote, and in different time zones, Jell lets you run asynchronous daily scrum meetings.