What is a Daily Scrum?
Daily scrums are quick, 15-minute meetings held each day at the same time for members of the product development team working on a particular sprint. The team collectively reviews the progress made toward achieving the Sprint Goal. Because these meetings are intentionally brief, the team can select whichever format works best for them.
What is the purpose?
Daily scrums help to ensure that everyone on the team is on the same page, knows what they need to be working on for the next day, and can identify any potential obstacles that may need to be addressed. If someone is falling behind, resources should be reallocated accordingly. If developers have already completed their assigned tasks, they can pull new items from the Sprint Backlog.
At the end of the daily scrum, everyone should know if their tasks have changed so that everyone is now working on the most critical tasks. Allowing the team to manage this themselves remains true to the self-organizing principles of Agile.
Who attends the meetings?
The product development team is the primary group that attends the daily scrum, but if the Scrum Master or Product Owner are working on sprint tasks themselves, they may also attend and participate in the discussion.
The daily scrum is a meeting for those actively working on sprint-related tasks to discuss progress and blockers. While others may attend, they cannot participate in the discussion.
What does scrum look like in Agile?
After going around the group and hearing what everyone has accomplished, the team now understands what needs to be done next and if there are any outstanding issues that need to be addressed in order to maintain momentum. The Scrum Master typically takes charge of addressing any impediments that might stand in the way of progress.
What’s the Difference Between a Daily Scrum and a Daily Standup?
Unlike a daily scrum, a daily standup is not part of the official Scrum lexicon or rituals. Although it borrows heavily from Agile principles, daily standups are quick status meetings where the extended team involved in a Sprint provides updates on relevant items.
The “standup” part of this idea isn’t really about what physical position people are in for the meeting, instead of believing that if everyone is standing, they’re less comfortable. The meeting won’t take very long – which is why many organizations interchangeably use “daily scrum” and “daily standup.” While technically incorrect, they usually mean the same thing – a meeting that follows the “daily scrum” format.