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Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

blog.valuemotive.com

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Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#81

Post by lbriner »

hugg wrote: post #16

Personally, I like the slack message standup over the meeting, but that's mainly because I'm a terrible listener, at least with text I can go back and see what a certain person has decided to mention. I also feel like it's easier to mention someone that I might need help from during the day

The problem I have with the Slack model is that it becomes opt-in. Lots of Devs simply won't read the channels because they won't care what other people were doing even if that knowledge helps people to skill-share, coach, encourage or take part of the work off of someone else.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#82

Post by ljf »

nakodari wrote: post #34

For a small remote company like ours, it would be exhausting to do daily scrum meetings. Instead, we have an hour-long weekly scrum meeting on Monday and it's more effective.

Can you give a little more context about why it would become exhausting for remote workers? I'd seen terrible stand ups and good ones, but the location of those taking part has rarely been a deciding factor.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#83

Post by celticmusic »

twic wrote: post #80
celticmusic wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, right? How would two consenting adults ever work together to solve problems by communicating? Thankfully we have them stand up daily, without which they'd both just continually walk into the wall like lemmings.

Don't lemmings turn round when they hit a wall?

You're thinking of a Rhoomba :P

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#84

Post by mmsimanga »

balfirevic wrote: post #76
twic wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This will interrupt programming flow. This is why you do the standup first thing, before people have started working. There is no flow to interrupt. > Another point is I don't solve problems in a linear fashion. When I am stuck I sometimes jump to another part of the application that I know I will have to tackle later on. That's just me. If you're doing XP, or any kanban-flavoured variety of agile, you pick up one…

> This is why you do the standup first thing, before people have started working. There is no flow to interrupt. That requires all the people to come to work at the same time.

This point is dealt with in the article. People have different traveling arrangements. In my case sometimes I have to drop off my child at school and head in after the morning rush hour. So daily stand up is not first thing in the morning.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#85

Post by athenot »

I haven't found a way to make daily standups work in my team which is fully remote and spread out on 3 continents and 4 time zones (so there is no "start of day"). Instead I have a weekly sync with everyone and 1:1 with each person on a weekly basis.

Kanban board gets reviewed weekly for assignment and direction (and I keep an eye on it thoughout the week). Blockers get addressed asynchronously in dedicated discussion spaces as soon as they arise. If a solution isn't found in chat then it becomes a topic on the sync meeting. But generally, there's no "spinning wheels" as everyone is mature and doesn't need a short leash.

Which leads me to trust. Everyone in our team has a decent amount of experience. They all know when they are stuck and they all know where to ask for help. I've always felt that trust is empowering and that's what I wish for everyone on my team.

But in this context, 1:1 are very important and I try my best to make them safe spaces for people to bring up issues which would be more uncomfortable to bring up in a group setting, especially for introvert personalities.

Ideally, pick what works best for YOUR team. Experiment and try new things. What works today may not be the right thing in a year. These are tools, not dogmas. The worst process is the one everyone follows but nobody knows why nor how/if it helps.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#86

Post by mmsimanga »

twic wrote: post #71
mmsimanga wrote: post #30

> This will interrupt programming flow. This for me is the biggest drawback. When you are in the zone and interrupted it takes long to get back in the flow again. Another point is I don't solve problems in a linear fashion. When I am stuck I sometimes jump to another part of the application that I know I will have to tackle later on. That's just me. This is hard to explain in Agile with a PM/scrum master present. Edi…

> This will interrupt programming flow. This is why you do the standup first thing, before people have started working. There is no flow to interrupt. > Another point is I don't solve problems in a linear fashion. When I am stuck I sometimes jump to another part of the application that I know I will have to tackle later on. That's just me. If you're doing XP, or any kanban-flavoured variety of agile, you pick up one…

> But to be honest, what you're doing is almost certainly not very effective, so maybe stop doing that?

You most certainly don't have enough information to make such a recommendation.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#87

Post by einpoklum »

philjr wrote: post #13
einpoklum wrote: post #3

This kind of daily meetings make me feel like I'm standing trial for my crimes. Especially if I've had a bad/down/unproductive day, which happens. Maybe it's better when you take away the power relations. And reduce the frequency during non-critical periods.

My 2c - the key is that the focus should be on delivery and not some justification for the work you did yesterday. The idea being that you are standing up looking at the work in front of you and the TEAM itself should be focused on how to move things across the board (ie delivering it to whatever definition of done makes sense for you)

> Focus should be on delivery

But if I wasn't productive yesterday, I'm not delivering today...

Also, the fact that someone _says_ the focus is on delivery doesn't mean the dramatic focus of the situation is not on whether or not you've "been good" yesterday.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#88

Post by einpoklum »

dd82 wrote: post #23
einpoklum wrote: post #3

This kind of daily meetings make me feel like I'm standing trial for my crimes. Especially if I've had a bad/down/unproductive day, which happens. Maybe it's better when you take away the power relations. And reduce the frequency during non-critical periods.

>Maybe it's better when you take away the power relations What do you mean by this? Are there significant issues with the management or other devs? This really should be a time where you bring up the issues you're having, and options for others to help you. Sometimes, tickets just get way underpointed, and I've definitely felt the "on trial" frame of mind, but that's more me putting more pressure on myself. It defini…

> What do you mean by this?

I mean, if there isn't a manager who can give you orders and personally decide whether you get fired or not. Of course that's not very realistic in a privately-owned, hierarchically-managed commercial company.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#89

Post by einpoklum »

twic wrote: post #65
einpoklum wrote: post #3

This kind of daily meetings make me feel like I'm standing trial for my crimes. Especially if I've had a bad/down/unproductive day, which happens. Maybe it's better when you take away the power relations. And reduce the frequency during non-critical periods.

Making classic standups useful and comfortable definitely requires psychological safety. You need to feel like you can occasionally say "worked on X, didn't make any progress", and a manager or a rival isn't going to pounce on you for it. If you don't have pervasive psychological safety, there's a lot of stuff from XP that isn't going to work.

This reminds of this scene:

https://youtu.be/OMDQzITWJyU?t=204

From "The Dictator", where Nuclear Nadal is reporting on his progress.

Re: Are Daily Scrum meetings worth it?

#90

Post by a_ranom_dev »

lbriner wrote: post #79
distantaidenn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a past life as a Product Manager, one of my top devs rarely attended standups. One day, she rolled into the office mid standup, went over to the coffee machine, and prepared a cup. Never looked in our direction, and proceeded to begin her work. Later during our 1-1, I asked her what the issue was, and she bluntly told me that she thought standups were useless. I never brought it up again, as she was an amazing dev…

That isn't the point at all. The standup isn't to make her a better developer, it is to make the team work more effectively. What happens when someone is taking a long time to do something that she knows a shortcut for but they won't know because "she doesn't need to come". It's a sad culture when a developer thinks they don't need the team or when, for some reason, they don't have to come to standups.

I know you mean well with your comment, but I secretly suspect that you are actually saying that you like your team and think this is jerk behavior. I have never seen how a standup actually helped team cohesion. Being called to stand in front of the middle manager and say your spiel about how soon you'll be done doesn't help team cohesion, unless you mean by simply submitting to the same crap the others are. Team cohesion is just flat out more complicated than 10 minutes of parrot and nod.
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