Before we get too deep into this topic, I want to ask you a question.
If I were to asked you how your daily scrums are right now, what would you say?
I often ask this when I do this as a conference talk, and the responses I get are maybe somewhat surprising.
I ask people, do they suck?
Are they okay?
Or would say they're perfect?
And it might surprise you to hear that about 80% of people say that they're okay.
They're not perfect, but they are doing okay, 11% or 10 or so percent say they actually suck, and maybe 8% think that their doing them perfectly.
So keep that in mind as I talk about some of these other answers that I get from folks in the same kind of data set, the group of folks that have presented
this to in conference talks.
I follow that question up and say, what kinds of problems do you see in your daily scrums?
I give them choices here.
I say do people treat it as a status update?
Does someone ramble on and on?
Do you have trouble staying in the time box?
Are there people who are constantly late to your Daily Scrum?
or do you have lots of outsiders that are interrupting?
Well, this probably isn't going to be a big surprise to you, but the number one answer that people vote for in that scenario is that,
people treat it as a status update.
In fact, you know, it's a large percentage of the people who say that's the No.
1 problem.
So that's my second question.
Then I ask them a third question, and I say, what would you say is closest to what you understand is the purpose of a daily scrum?
Now, this is where things get a little interesting, because I asked them what they think the purposes is, And I give them few choices.
I said, is it the reason that it serves as a team building activity?
Is it that the point is to inspect the team's progress in order to plan today's work?
Is it to provide a status report to the Scrum Master?
Or is it keep the team on track to ensure that they meet their commitments?
Now, take a breath because the number one answer that I get from folks in this, thankfully, is what I was hoping for.
It is to inspect the teams progress in order to plan today's work, which is basically what the scrum guide tells us.
About 50% of people answer, But the scary stat for me is about 40% answer that the purpose of the Daily Scrum is to keep the team on track to ensure that
they meet their commitments.
It might be a side product of The Daily Scrum that a team gets back on the track in order to meet commitments, but that's not our purpose.
Our purpose at The daily Scum is inspect our progress towards a sprint goal and to adjust our plan to what we need to do next.
It's to talk to each other, it's for the developers to interact and make a plan for that day's work.
When I tell people the purpose, I oftentimes get shocked faces.
They are so used to it becoming a status report that that's all they know.
It is a Status Report.
I'm here to tell my Scrum Master what I did yesterday, what i plan to do today, and if I have any impediments.
That gets in the way, i think, a lot of times of the Purpose.
So just keep these stats in mind as we go through the rest of this series.
I just wanted you to know there's a lot of misunderstanding out there.
And I think a lotta it can be pointed directly back to why are we here?
What's the purpose?
Can you answer that?