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As a Certified Scrum Master, it’s your responsibility to conduct Daily Scrum promptly. However, you might face challenges while running the ‘Daily Scrum Meeting’ based on the Agile project’s development progress. Essentially, Scrum Meetings happen between the development team, integration team, testing team, and the Scrum Team to discuss:

• Review regular work progress
• Conduct Product Backlog planning
• Perform Sprint Planning
• Check constraints/blockers, if any

Daily Scrum is essential for the Developers to realize where their work progress stands in the sprint. In the meeting, they are free to discuss the given tasks and User Stories under the supervision of the Scrum Master. 

If you are responsible for planning Daily Scrum as the CSM, here are the top 6 tips & tricks that you can try to arrange the upcoming Scrum Meetings!

1. Stick To The Main Rule: Conduct “Daily Scrum” Everyday

The Daily Scrum should happen every day at a fixed time when everyone is available. It’s the Scrum Master’s responsibility to accommodate all parties (Developers, QA Testers, Business Analysts, Product Owner, etc.) in the Scrum daily stand-up. So you should encourage every team member should join the call at the scheduled time every day. You can track the meeting attendees to confront those who failed to attend that day’s stand-up call. In this way, you can maintain the Scrum call’s regularity. Also, if the Daily Scrum meeting does not happen daily, the teams start losing out on the collaborative effort as per the Product Roadmap.

2. Stay Prepared Beforehand & Keep A Watch On Meeting Time

Predefine the standard of the Daily Scrum meeting. Plan and prepare for the upcoming Scrum Call depending on the scheduling time. As the Agile Leader, you can prepare a list of topics that need to be addressed on high priority.

Don’t bring the topics that are unwanted for the ongoing Sprint. Stick to the planned meeting agenda and discuss only those items that need immediate attention of the Product Owner and others. Maintain complete transparency about the Scrum call’s agenda so that you can engage the attendees in a point-to-point topic discussion. Follow the scheduled time so that every item gets checked out before the meeting ends.

3. Discuss Daily Goals Based On The Sprint Goal

The ideal way to begin the Daily Scrum is by summarizing the Sprint Goal to all so that everyone stays on the right path. Next, it’s time to share the daily goal status. Every team member must discuss their activities and how much progress they have made in one day. The teams can also discuss their shared daily goal and what they aim to achieve next. Daily goal tracking helps the teams to work efficiently on individual User Stories based on the Product Goal. It stimulates smooth inter-team cooperation and collaboration.

4. Present The Project Activity Board During The Daily Scrum

Every Agile Project utilizes task boards such as Azure DevOps Board, Kanban Board, etc., to assign work activities to the team members. The task board is a central place where everyone is responsible for updating their assigned work activities.

During the Daily Scrum, you can share the project activity board with all so that every team member can point out their work progress. Sharing the Activity Board on the screen provides clarity, transparency, and encouragement to the teams to achieve the Sprint Goal. It also ensures that every work item gets updated accordingly.

5. Focus On Outcomes Instead Of Activities

You might have to go through multiple User Stories and Product Backlog Items in every Scrum meeting. However, counting how many work activities are remaining doesn't contribute to the Product Goal. The most important part of Daily Scrum is confirming how much Sprint Goal is achieved. For that, raise the following questions in the meeting:

• How does the team plan to work together for the active User Stories?
• How much Capacity Planning is needed to move toward the end goal?
• What can be improved to fasten the development and testing process?

As a Scrum Master, always focus on finding concrete results about the team's achievements in Daily Scrum. Indeed, it will help to achieve the Definition of Done within the planned time.

6. Hear Out Everyone's Concerns At The End

Of course, team members can have a couple of concerns in every Scrum call. As the CSM, you must hear out everyone’s individual opinions and feedback. At the end of the Daily Scrum, spend the remaining 4-5 minutes listening and understanding the team’s concerns. Find out what challenges the Developers are facing to complete the User Stories. Discuss the probable solutions to their problems so that they can get clarity about how to plan the next development phase.

Conclusion 

Daily Scrum must happen every day at a specific time. The Scrum Team must coordinate with all team members in the call to check the status of the Sprint Goal. The Scrum Master must collaborate with the Product Owner to help the Developers clear the Product Backlog. The meeting should be engaging, transparent, and on-point. Everyone should update about their work activities based on the Product Goal. Indeed, the Daily Scrum call will help the Agile Leader to push his team towards success!

Reference

1. Daily Scrum - Tips & Tactics | Scrum.org