The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprin v1

The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprint

The Daily stand-up – A Recommitment to the SprintThe daily stand-up is all about commitment and insuring that the team keeps its commitment. I learned about commitment from my wife, Maria. When I propose, before Maria would say yes, she asked if I knew what a commitment was and what I was proposing to her. Maria stated that a commitment was more than a promise to try your hardest, it was a promise to do everything in your power and more, if you could, to make sure that you kept the promise, even if things changed or if you overlooked things at this time in making this commitment. It rather reminded me of the song “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” by Meat Loaf, when his lady friend said:

“I gotta know right now

Before we go any further

Do you love me?

Will you love me forever?”

And his words at the end of the song:“I swore I would love you to the end of time

So now I'm praying for the end of time

To hurry up and arrive

'Cause if I gotta spend another minute with you

I don't think that I can really survive

I'll never break my promise or forget my vow

But God only knows what I can do right now

I'm praying for the end of time

It's all I can do

I'm praying for the end of time

So I can end my time with you”

In agile, our sprints are a team commitment to the business, to deliver. Highly effective teams respect, and do as my wife said, “everything in their power and more, if they could, to make sure that they keep the promise, even if things changed or if they overlooked things at this time in making the commitment.” Less effective teams are like the losers who abandon their marriage upon encountering a more attractive woman, who accept a half done job upon encountering some problem, or who feel that they have done their part and therefore let the other team members fail. Such losers were never truly committed; therefore, such losers give up on the commitment for the silliest of reasons. The daily stand-up is a time of team recommitment and a time for the team to identify risks in meeting the team’s commitment to completing everything within the sprint. It is not a status report or a social gathering; it is all about the team’s commitment to the sprint, and only that. In the early stages of a team’s development, it is very common for the team to fail in meeting its sprint commitment, which is OK, if the team is learning from its failures, and adjusting accordingly in their estimations for the next sprint. This process is known as the PDCA, Plan Do Check Adjust cycle.

Facilitating Highly Effective Daily Stand-Ups

The Role of the Scrum MasterThe scrum master facilitates the daily stand-up by:

a) Opening the meeting.b) Transitioning between the stages.

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The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprintc) Holding discussions until the final stage, the discussion stage.d) Identifying when a discussion should be continued outside the daily stand-up.e) Ensuring that someone has ownership of any discussion that is to be continued outside

the daily stand-up.f) Closing the meeting. g) Ensuring that the daily stand-up does not exceed the allocated time.

The Stages of the Daily Scrum or Daily Stand-upThis meeting has 3 stages, with the first 2 stages being limited to just a few minutes with no discussions until the last 10 minutes of the daily stand-up, the discussion stage.

1. Team Status StageTo provide a status to the team on what the team members are working on and where they are. This is done by briefly sharing with the team:

1. What they did since the last daily stand-up, 2. What they are planning to do before the next daily stand-up, and 3. Any impediments that they might have.

2. Commitments Review StageThe team has made commitments to be completed by the end of the sprint. The daily stand-up is a chance for the team to review their commitments and identify any commitments that are at risk.This is done by

4. Opening with a statement that reminds the team, of how many days they have left in this sprint, it might go something like this:

“We have ___ days to go in this sprint, let’s review the team’s commitments to see if any commitments are at risk, we will talk about any risk in a few minutes.”

5. Look at each commitment to see if there are any at risk and note the ones that need to be talked about or looked at more closely in the next stage, the discussion stage.

3. Discussion StageThis is a time to go over risk and talk about other issues at a very high level, so that the team is aware of what is going on. This should be firmly limited to 10 minutes. If more time is needed for discussions, then that should be identified and someone assigned ownership, to make the necessary arrangements. If the discussion is to continue right after the daily stand-up, then the daily stand-up should be closed first by making a statement something like: “This concludes todays daily stand-up.” This will allow individuals who do not need to or want to stay for further discussion, the freedom to leave.

Handling Common Standup IssuesHere are some common problems or threats that teams sometimes encounter in running effective daily stand-ups, which are focused on meeting the team’s commitment to the sprint:

1. Not Wanting to Wait Until the Discussion StageThis is one of the two biggest problems, which most teams have; team members begin to share their three statements and immediately go into detail. If the scrum master allows any discussion in the first two stages, no matter how short or significant, the daily stand up will get off track, as team members will quickly start attempting to solve the

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The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprintproblems or get caught up in social conversations that has nothing to do with meeting the commitments of the sprint. If team members think that they will forget, have them write it down. In one team that I was coaching, post-it-notes where provided at the daily stand-up so that team members could make a quick note during the first two stages, that was then a topic for reviewed during the discussion stage. I have found that the scrum master can quickly resolve this problem by:

1. Opening the daily stand up with a short reminder of the three stages of the daily stand up, specifically pointing out that discussion will take place in the third stage.

2. Quickly reminding the team to hold discussion until the third stage, each time an individual begins to go into any detail or discussion.

3. If needed the scrum master should treat this as an impediment and follow the steps for resolving team impediments at the end of this document.

2. Trying to Remove Blockers or Problem-Solving in the Daily Stand-UpI find the song “Turn! Turn! Turn!” is both inspiring and very true with agile, the daily stand-up is a time to reframe from trying to remove blockers or problem solving. There will be plenty of time for trying to remove blockers and problem solving after the daily stand-up. The scrum master must insure that someone takes ownership of each blocker or problem identified during the daily stand-up, so that the team knows that the issue will be addressed and that they can stay focused on the objective of the daily stand-up, which is to empower the team members to take and maintain ownership over the team’s sprint commitments.Spending time during the daily stand-up trying to remove blockers and solving problems will reduce the commitment and energy of the daily stand-up for several reasons including:

The urgency of being on time will be lost as tardy team members will justify being late, as long as they are able to make it in time to give their report, which will go beyond the first few minutes as the team tries to remove blockers and solve problems during the daily stand-up.

Busy team members will feel justified to skip the daily stand-up as the urgency of their work will seem to outweigh the value that they get or give during the drawn-out daily stand-up.

Conversations will expand from meeting the team’s sprint commitment to social topics, to somewhat related and interesting topics, and to just feeling a need to participate in the conversation regardless of its value in meeting the team’s sprint commitment.

The energy will wain as team members not critically engaged will become distracted. I have found that the scrum master can quickly resolve this problem by:

1. Beginning the discussion stage with a short reminder that the team only has 10 minutes to review items that need to be discussed, so discussion must be kept at a high level and anything that needs more discussion will need to be discussed after or outside of the daily stand-up.

2. Assigning or ask someone to take ownership for any issue that is turning into a longer discussion then the daily stand-up will accommodate and then move on to the next topic.

3. Closing the daily stand-up on time.4. If needed the scrum master should treat this as an impediment and follow the steps

for resolving team impediments at the end of this document.Note that it is ok to clarify shared information so that the team members understand what is being said but do not use the daily stand-up as a time to try to remove blockers, solve problems, or educate team members.

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The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprint3. Team Members Coming Unprepared

Team members sometimes do not see the importance of coming to the daily stand-up prepared because they do not understand the objective of the daily stand-up, or because they have time management issues.I have found that the scrum master can quickly resolve this problem by:

1. Reminding the team a few minutes before the beginning of the daily stand-up that they need to update their stories and tasks before coming to the daily stand-up.

2. Having the team members point to the affected task or story as they give their update.

3. Explaining that the team will be better able to identify risks that might hinder the team from meeting its sprint commitments by viewing the current data on each story and task at the daily stand-up.

4. Holding the start of the daily stand-up while you sent the team back to update their stories and tasks.


4. Scrum Master Not PresentIf the scrum master is not present, then another team member should step in and take on the role of scrum master until the scrum master returns. Effective teams should be able to operate without the scrum master present.

5. Product Owner Not PresentThe team should be able to operate without the product owner, however the product owner should try to attend, so that they remain informed of the team’s progress and are available if an issue has been identified that place the sprint commitment at risk or if there are blockers that the product owner may be able to assist in addressing.If the sprint commitment is at risk or if the team wants to bring in additional stories the scrum master needs to setup a meeting with the product owner and the team outside of the daily stand-up to discuss the sprint commitments.

6. Late & No ShowsIf team members are late or do not show for the daily stand-up, the scrum master must address the problem. I have found that the scrum master can quickly resolve this problem by:

1. Reminding the team a few minutes before the beginning of the daily stand-up so they will know that it is time for the sprint.

2. Reminding team members that the sprint is only, a few minutes long so it is important for everyone to show up on time.

3. Making sure that the team members understand that to accomplish the objective of the daily stand-up that all team members need to be present.

4. Asking all of the team members to stay after the daily stand-up to discuss whether to or not change the time of the daily stand-up to accommodate the late comers.


7. Constantly Interrupted by ObserversThe daily stand-up is a public meeting of the core team members. The core team members are those who are actively engaged in the development process and generally do not include managers,

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The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprintcoaches, or product owners. It is a time for the core team to identify risks that might hinder the team from meeting its commitments to the sprint. Non-core team members may attend and even participate, so long as they do not distract the core team from the objective of the daily stand-up or extend the time of the daily stand-up beyond its time box, which is usually 15 minutes or less. If a non-core member distracts the team or extends the time of the daily stand-up, the scrum master must insure that problem is addressed. I have found that the scrum master can quickly resolve this problem by:

1. Reminding the non-core member or visitor of the purpose of the daily stand-up at the time of the interference.


Steps for Resolving Team ImpedimentsWhile the scrum master is not a manager and is not to take on the role of a manager, they are the team’s process leader and in that role, they should do whatever they can, to improve the team’s effectiveness, including removing team impediments. Below is an escalation process to help the scrum master address impediments:

Privately talk to individuals who are impeding the team from meeting its sprint commitments, explain what they are doing and how it is affecting the team.

Discuss with the team, usually at the next retrospective, the identified impediment. The team should collectively come up with a plan to address the impediment and then approve the plan. The team members collectively make up the team’s front line manager.

If the team has tried various alternatives and feels that it cannot address the impediment or if the team feels that the impediment needs to be addressed immediately it should authorize the scrum master to escalate the impediment to the team’s development manager. This way the development manager can become a part owner and may even be able to take corrective action if appropriate.

In the rare case, where the scrum master is not confident that the team can address the impediment, the scrum master may wish to escalate the impediment directly to the development manager without the support of the team.

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The Daily Stand-Up – A Recommitment to the Sprin v1

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