Removing the Daily Scrum while Keeping its Intent

Over the past 15 years, I’ve been part of many teams that decided to eliminate the Daily Scrum (Daily Standup) meeting. We did this by integrating its intent and purpose into our daily work routines. In this post, I’ll explain:

1. What a Daily Scrum meeting is.
2. The meeting’s purpose and intent.
3. Issues we encountered that drove the change.
4. How we maintained the purpose and intent without a formal Daily Scrum.

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What is a Daily Scrum Meeting?

The Daily Scrum, or Daily Standup, is a brief, 15-minute meeting where team members sync up on their progress, plan for the next 24 hours, and highlight any impediments. This promotes transparency, early issue identification, accountability, and open communication, fostering team cohesion.

The Purpose and Intent of the Daily Scrum:

We identified this as:

1. Setting the developers’ plan for the next 24 hours.
2. Facilitating coordination and communication.
3. Identifying and resolving impediments quickly.
4. Building transparency and collective ownership of work.
5. Maintaining focus on Sprint goals and achieving “done.”

Removing the Daily Scrum

With a clear understanding of the meeting’s purpose, we questioned its necessity since our remote team worked together on camera for five hours daily.

We realized we already met the Daily Scrum’s intent during our core hours:

1. Why should we wait to have a daily meeting to set our plan for the next 24-hour period?
2. We coordinated and communicated continuously.
3. We addressed impediments as they arose.
4. We discussed completed tasks and stories as they happened.
5. We had ongoing conversations about our Sprint goals.

Issues We Encountered - The Main Complaints:

1. “I don’t want to turn on my camera.” We addressed this with team-agreed working agreements and core hours.
2. “I hate meetings.” We integrated the Daily Scrum’s essence into our daily routine and core hours.

We also introduced a video sync for absences during core hours, where team members recorded their updates on accomplishments and blocking issues, omitting future plans due to possible changes.

Summary

The key to Scrum is upholding its principles, not just the meetings themselves. If the Daily Scrum isn’t serving its purpose, adapt and find new ways to maintain its intent. The goal is effective communication and progress towards team goals.

#Scrum #Agile #Teamwork #Productivity #RemoteWork #DailyScrum #DailyStandup #Kanban