What is Daily Scrum?
Daily Scrum is the daily Scrum event, up to 15 minutes long, in which the Developers align and synchronize work toward the Sprint Goal. It is not a status meeting for management: it is the moment the technical team discusses opportunities to collaborate and share knowledge for the next 24 hours. It happens at the same time, in the same place, every working day of the Sprint.
In practice
In a healthy team, the Daily is focused and often ends before 15 minutes. The team identifies opportunities to collaborate, share knowledge and align on what will happen in the next 24 hours — until the next Daily. Items that turn into long conversations leave the Daily and become a follow-up meeting right after. The Scrum Master observes, helps keep focus and captures impediments that need to be solved elsewhere. In remote teams, it works equally well with camera on and a shared board. K21's CSM course shows how to move the Daily out of "status" mode into "live planning" mode.
What happens when it is missing
Teams without a Daily lose the daily chance to adjust the plan and discover impediments only at the Review, when it is too late to react. Bad Dailies (turned into status, 40 minutes long, used to "control" the team) generate the opposite of what is expected: fatigue, resentment and the sense that Scrum is bureaucracy. The cost is silent, but it kills the framework from the inside.
Related terms
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Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM)
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