Thanks Mike. You promised and delivered. One thing I had not given much thought to is my update as a Scrum Master. That is a good opportunity I've been missing. A funny side note, my wife kept forgetting the title "Scrum Master" and was telling people I was a "Scrum Lord". LOL! She has it down correctly now, but she got some weird looks!
The opposite happens to me. I have a team of seniors where we know what we do. And normally we have tasks of more than 3 points. So we think that the daily meeting is a waste of time. Because we always end up giving a report to our scrum master and the Product owner. And most importantly we have communication during the rest of the day between team members.
I'd stop daily scrums then. The point of them is to get team members talking to one another. Many team members would be prefer to bolt the metaphoric door and work in silence all day. (Sign me up! :) Daily scrums ensure we talk. Many teams who tell me they want to stop because "we talk all time" don't ever have whole-team conversations. So person A talks to B, B talks to C and D but they're never all together. In that situation, I think they'll benefit from a daily standup where A, B, C and D all share and hear the same information. If your team is achieving that then you may want to reduce the frequency of daily standups. I'd be reluctant to go to "never" but try once or twice a week.
Thanks, Mike. Getting non-talking folks to feel comfortable is important. We now start each standup with some music submitted by the team. Everyone tries to guess the song and who submitted it. It's a great icebreaker and gets even the quite ones involved. Then, like you suggested, I get the quieter ones going first and there is less resistance. I work with other teams that use pictures or quotes to do the same thing. Love the video and continued coaching you provide!
I agree. If you're curious, I cover purpose starting at 3:53. I also recorded a video about how the daily scrum is not a status meeting. And I've got a video out about an alternative format too. You can find links to both videos in the description.
what do you think about non-work related conversations during stand-ups, is it a good starter to get people to speak up? not many team members seem to be engaged in that. We're talking remote dailys here
With virtual teams, having time for non-work conversations is a great idea. You can read more of my thoughts on it here: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/breaking-the-daily-scrum-time-box. My colleague Brian Milner also does this with virtual teams: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/seven-tips-for-running-a-virtual-daily-scrum
@@MountainGoatSoftware These are definitely helpful, thank you! I find myself already trying some of the stuff mentioned, maybe I need to be more creative about it.
Scrum Masters should comment on anything they did relevant to the current sprint or possibly the next sprint. If they removed any impediments, mention them. If they completed any work, mention that. Perhaps they helped the PO split some backlog items to be ready for the next sprint. They don't have to say much but there should almost always be something worth mentioning.
And what scrum master should do if team is not interested in daily scrum? They dont want to participate, they dont want to talk, and they think that daily scrum is useless? I can feel that team is there just becuse has to be?
Thanks Mike. You promised and delivered. One thing I had not given much thought to is my update as a Scrum Master. That is a good opportunity I've been missing. A funny side note, my wife kept forgetting the title "Scrum Master" and was telling people I was a "Scrum Lord". LOL! She has it down correctly now, but she got some weird looks!
Scrum Lord should be a band name!
The opposite happens to me. I have a team of seniors where we know what we do. And normally we have tasks of more than 3 points. So we think that the daily meeting is a waste of time. Because we always end up giving a report to our scrum master and the Product owner. And most importantly we have communication during the rest of the day between team members.
I'd stop daily scrums then. The point of them is to get team members talking to one another. Many team members would be prefer to bolt the metaphoric door and work in silence all day. (Sign me up! :) Daily scrums ensure we talk.
Many teams who tell me they want to stop because "we talk all time" don't ever have whole-team conversations. So person A talks to B, B talks to C and D but they're never all together. In that situation, I think they'll benefit from a daily standup where A, B, C and D all share and hear the same information.
If your team is achieving that then you may want to reduce the frequency of daily standups. I'd be reluctant to go to "never" but try once or twice a week.
@@MountainGoatSoftware we are going to try 3 times per week
That is great. Please let me know how that works out.
@@MountainGoatSoftware Will do. Thanks
Thanks, Mike. Getting non-talking folks to feel comfortable is important. We now start each standup with some music submitted by the team. Everyone tries to guess the song and who submitted it. It's a great icebreaker and gets even the quite ones involved. Then, like you suggested, I get the quieter ones going first and there is less resistance. I work with other teams that use pictures or quotes to do the same thing. Love the video and continued coaching you provide!
I love the guess-the-song idea. I'll try that. Thanks.
Thanks, Mike for giving us some good tips. It's also be good to agree with the team up front about the purpose and the format of the meeting.
I agree. If you're curious, I cover purpose starting at 3:53. I also recorded a video about how the daily scrum is not a status meeting. And I've got a video out about an alternative format too. You can find links to both videos in the description.
what do you think about non-work related conversations during stand-ups, is it a good starter to get people to speak up?
not many team members seem to be engaged in that.
We're talking remote dailys here
With virtual teams, having time for non-work conversations is a great idea. You can read more of my thoughts on it here: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/breaking-the-daily-scrum-time-box. My colleague Brian Milner also does this with virtual teams: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/seven-tips-for-running-a-virtual-daily-scrum
@@MountainGoatSoftware These are definitely helpful, thank you! I find myself already trying some of the stuff mentioned, maybe I need to be more creative about it.
@@giovanninabil6950 You're welcome!
great as always
Thank you
One question. What update a scrum master is expected to give in a daily standup?
Scrum Masters should comment on anything they did relevant to the current sprint or possibly the next sprint. If they removed any impediments, mention them. If they completed any work, mention that. Perhaps they helped the PO split some backlog items to be ready for the next sprint. They don't have to say much but there should almost always be something worth mentioning.
And what scrum master should do if team is not interested in daily scrum? They dont want to participate, they dont want to talk, and they think that daily scrum is useless? I can feel that team is there just becuse has to be?
Great topic, Irina. I'll add it to my list and make a video on that topic. It's very frustrating when team members behave like this.
Progress plan and problems, the 3 p's
It's an ideal way to remember the 3 common parts of the discussion.