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The Short: What I completed yesterday, what I’m doing today, and note any blockers to success.

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

While this event has the word “daily” in its name, remember, Agile is agile and thus can adjust to the users’ needs. As a general rule, the longer the sprint duration, the fewer Daily Scrum meetings you should be having in a week.

The thought process is as such;

<aside> 💡 The Scrum Master should ensure that speaking priority is given to the Development Team during the Daily Scrum and remains on point. This is not the time for other work topics, be it from the Development Team or onlookers.

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• If your sprint is two weeks long, the Scrum Master/Project Manager needs two things from the Development Team every day.
  • Current Status (what you did & what you’re doing)
  • Blocker(s) (what’s preventing you from moving forward... ‘cause the Scrum Master is about to drop an elbow on it for you!
• If your sprints are one month or longer, the conversations between the Scrum Master and the Development will happen more naturally during the course of a day/week and won’t require as many official meetings to track progress. If you tell me you finished something, I’ll update it in the requisite tracker and perhaps send an email to the team. Once a week or every other week may work for long-duration projects.
• Caveat time (there’s always one...); all meeting schedules need to be agreed upon. It’s Ryan’s recommendation that you schedule meetings to coincide with Stakeholder management requirements. This will alleviate the additional burden on the Scrum Master and the Development Team from gathering necessary information outside of already scheduled conversations.

Here’s the official stance on the Daily Scrum from the Scrum Guide 👇

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.

<aside> 💡 The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers are allowed to adjust their plan.

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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.