How to Run Remote Daily Standup Meetings Effectively?
Daily Standup Meetings are Scrum Events that occur every day where the Developers synchronises on the ongoing Sprint's status. The meetings are timeboxed, and maximum 15-minutes are recommended. The Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) helps to synchronize the team's activities and helps the Developers create a plan for the next 24 hours. The Daily Standup Meetings are an integral part of product development as they help in collaboration and communication between the team members. These meetings aid in assessing the Scrum Team's performance and allows them to inspect the work done since the last daily Scrum and forecast the position for the upcoming sprint. Daily Standups are held at the same time and place to avoid complexity.
Scrum Frameworks are the most widely used frameworks in the Agile industry. Implementing Scrum has shown significant improvement in increasing the business value of the companies. The Scrum Team needs to conduct the Scrum Events to work effectively and efficiently. The Scrum requires to conduct four events called the Daily Standups, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective. The Daily Standups are meetings where the team gathers to discuss the progress of the project. These are strictly timeboxed, and team members are given a specific time to provide their project's current status. The Daily Standups are crucial for the success of any product development and delivery.
What is the purpose and outcome of Daily Standups?
The Daily Standup meetings- primary purpose is to inspect and synchronize the team's progress towards the Sprint goal. Every member of the Developers should be transparent with the day's schedule and what they are going to complete today. This helps to inspect the progress made so far, and adapt a plan for the rest of the Sprint.
The three essential questions that are asked in a Daily Scrum Meeting up are:
- What did the team members achieve yesterday?
- What are they working on today?
- Are there any impediments to their work?
These questions are recommended in the Scrum Guide but not a mandatory format.
After answering these three questions, the team begins to discuss the impediments in detail. The Developers is the primary member of the meeting. The Scrum Master can facilitate the discussion, and the Product Owner can be present to clarify any pending questions. However, their attendance is not mandatory.
Importance of Daily Scrum Meetings in Organizational Growth
When the customers get their desired products with regular updates, it creates trust and satisfaction between the business organizations and their customers. Customer satisfaction also creates positive networking and attracts more clients and increases the business value of the company. Scrum Master can apply various tactics and tips to conduct effective Daily Standups and get the best out of the Scrum Team to develop the desired product.
The role of the Scrum Master is to ensure that the Developers has a Daily Standup meeting. The Scrum Master must ensure that if others are present in the forum, they do not disrupt the meeting. They also see that the meeting is timeboxed and lasts for a maximum of 15 minutes. Scrum.org states that the Daily Standups are not just status meetings but also meetings with various other benefits such as promoting self-organization, amplifying transparency, and enabling frequent inspection and adaptation. Hence, conducting effective Daily Standups are essential for organizational growth.
Problems faced during virtual standups in remote working environments
Remote working environments can cause various issues as the teams cannot have a face to face conversation and can also face numerous technical glitches. In virtual standups, the most common problem is that there are always technical glitches while joining a meeting. Using complex video conferencing tools would take away a lot of time from the Developers that could have been used for working towards the sprint. An unstable internet is another concern of many individuals where any team member can experience a power cut or internet connection instability. During these situations, the audio and video of the person speaking will not be exact and could lead to sentences' misinterpretations. The virtual standups primarily face the technical barrier and cannot be as effective as a face-to-face conversation.
Here are few tips and tactics to run a useful daily stand up meetings:
1. The right time and place matters
Let the Scrum Developers choose their starting time, whichever suits them the best. This gives them a sense of ownership and encourages them to complete and attend the meetings on time and discuss effectively. The Daily Standups are advised to be conducted in places where there is less noise so that there are no physical barriers in communication between the team members. Also, many experts suggest, to avoid complexity, a similar time and place may be selected so that the team members can schedule their day for the meetings.
2. Planning an effective Goal
A shared Sprint goal, which is accurately defined, would help the Scrum Developers correctly assess the type of work they must be working on. This also helps to deduct needless discussions in the Daily Scrum and keeps the meetings timeboxed. A daily goal can be something that the team aims to achieve by the end of the day. It could be a goal that is the sum of all the individual tasks, i.e., the goal is achieved when all the team members have effectively contributed towards the goals. The examples of daily goals could be completing a user story X or getting the user story Y tested. This offers a focus to the team about their plan for the day and also enhances productivity. It also promotes team building and collaboration among the team members. If the daily plan and daily goals are not matching, it is advisable to revise the daily goal according to the program.
Often during the Daily Standups, members start addressing their problems that may not be relevant to the project's Sprint goal. This ends up taking a lot of time, and the meeting extends the time allotted. In these situations, it is advisable for using a parking lot where the problems that are not relevant to the discussion could be noted down and be discussed some other time. This ensures the members their issues are taken note of and keeps the Daily Standups with the time frame.
3. Use Parking Lots and Task Boards to create transparency
The task board must be the object where everyone is focused on, and the team members must be allowed to specify their list and the amount of work that is completed. Using a task board ensures clarity for everyone and also consumes less time to conduct the meetings. Use the task board as a communication driver and discuss the things that are done first, so that the team focuses on the work that has to be finished. Ensure that the artifacts that may be essential during the meetings are at the venue, such as the Definition of Done, Sprint goal, Sprint calendar, and team agreements - this aids in providing clarity to the team members and helps them focus on the meetings better.
4. Building Independent Teams
In new teams, the Scrum Master may act as a facilitator for the group and help them understand and coordinate among the members to establish a daily goal and clarify the Sprint goal. But the Scrum Master should ensure that they build teams that can handle the Daily Standups with them by creating an independency among the members. More mature teams are encouraged to conduct the Daily Standup without the Scrum Master and collaborate and discuss their daily progress.
The Product Owner needs not to be present in the Daily Standups, but their presence may give the team clarity about the Product Backlog items and give feedback on the daily plans of the Developers . The team needs to discuss mostly the things that they achieved yesterday and till that day and also need to have clarity on what they are going to accomplish today. Irrelevant discussions about minor tasks that don't contribute to the Sprint goal should not be encouraged.
5. Make the connections faster with a stable A/V set up:
If setting up the Daily Standup takes more than 10 minutes, then each second of it is wasted. This mostly happens in remote Daily Standups where everyone may be in different timezones. Ensure that the video conferencing does not cause any frustration to all the developer members. The video conferencing tool must be a handy tool that offers many features and should be available for all devices, either laptops or phones. Make sure that the Video conferencing tool has the following features:
- Simplicity: This ensures that much of the time is not wasted to just set up the team.
- Dedicated URL: A dedicated URL should be created such that the team members do not have to search for the new link every day and do not have any hard time joining the conversion.
- Wireless screen sharing: The tool should allow participants to share their screen without any wire connections.
- Remote screen sharing: This ensures that the small team members also can share their screen during video conferencing.
Conclusion
Daily Standups are an integral part of Scrum Project Management and are crucial for the Scrum Team's success. Few Scrum teams may neglect the importance and do not conduct it every day. This leads to communication gaps and a lack of coordination and collaboration among the team members. Following these simple steps can ensure that the Daily Standup Meetings are conducted effectively that would ultimately lead to the Scrum Team's success and the success of the organization.
References
- https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html#events-daily
- https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-daily-scrum
- https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/daily-scrum-tips-tactics
- https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/scrum-myths-daily-scrum-not-status-meeting
- https://selleo.com/blog/how-to-run-remote-daily-scum-meeting-effectively
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