Why I Don’t Moderate the Daily Scrum
From my perspective, the Daily Scrum is the most important of all meetings. ➡ It is where developers cooperate to plan the next 24 hours and inspect the progress towards the Sprint Goal.➡ It is the only regular meeting that happens every day.➡ It is the time when I see my whole Team in action. As a Scrum Master you can learn a lot about the Team’s dynamics and habits just by joining it and observing. For example, I once joined a Team where I observed the following: ➡ Developers reporting one by one to the Product Owner.➡ In case the PO was not present, always the same developers were running the meeting.➡ And one time: Nobody speaking, because neither the PO nor the developers who are usually running the meeting had joined (no joke, we sat in silence for 6 minutes before I asked what is happening). In such a situation I could just take over and run the meeting for the Team. But what would we learn from that? And what would happen the next time I’m not present? If the developers cannot conduct this meeting independently, it’s usually a sign of deeper issues that need addressing — issues more critical than meeting management. In the above case it turned out that there was a very hierarchical structure within the Team itself. According to the developers who did not dare to speak in the Daily, there was an unwritten rule that only the „Leads“ (= senior developers) run the meeting. Funnily enough, those „Leads“ were very surprised to learn about this rule… What did I do? After the next Daily I ran a small workshop to inspect and adapt the format of this meeting. We worked out how the developers can get the most out of it – without wasting time on reporting or waiting for anyone to start speaking. 👉 What are your experiences and challenges with the Daily? Who runs the meeting and why? hashtag#dailyscrum hashtag#selforganisation
