Many times, people will complain that their Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) meeting has turned into a status meeting for the Scrum Master, Product Owner or management. They are aware this is a problem since they remember from training that the primary purpose of the Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) is to “synchronize” the activities of the team, or as Ken Schwaber puts is its “an opportunity for the group to socialize and synchronize.”

Perhaps the best article available to improve your Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) is Jason Yip's "It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Stand-up Meetings". Here Yip begins by being a little more explicit about the goals of a Daily Scrum:

• To help start the day well
• To support improvement
• To reinforce focus on the right things
• To reinforce the sense of team
• To communicate what is going on

The characteristics of a great Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) is summarized by the GIFTS mnemonic:

• Good start: the event should give energy to the team, not take it. Energy comes from instilling a sense of purpose and urgency.
• Improvement: exposing problems to allow us to improve. Improvement is also about sharing better techniques and ideas.
• Focus: on moving work through the system in order to achieve our objectives, not encourage pointless activity.
• Team: effective teams are the result of regularly communicating, working, and helping each other, as well as over-coming shared obstacles.
• Status: in terms of “how is our work progressing?” and “is there anything else the team should know?”

And then there is “status” in terms of transparent reporting on progress using tools such as the Iteration Burn-down (Sprint Burn-down). While we are committed to providing this information, may also use the information to help during the Daily Standup (Daily Scrum), this type of status is a side-effect of a good meeting.

If your Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) meetings have turned into a status meeting without the benefits of providing a good start, working on improvements, focus and the team, then Yip's article is a good source of ideas to work the issue. Step 1 is to decide that you are going to bring back the Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) to its original purpose.

The Scrum Guide by Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber suggests that the 3 questions to be used in the Daily Standup (Daily Scrum) are:

• What did I do yesterday that helped the Team meet the Iteration Goals (Sprint Goals)?
• What will I do today to help the Team meet the Iteration Goals (Sprint Goals)?
• Do I see any impediment that prevents me or the Team from meeting the Iteration Goals (Sprint Goals)?

The idea is to remind the team that they are focusing on the Goal they have established.

* Miller's view of common stand-up meeting anti-patterns which also talks about common solutions to these anti-patterns. * And for a little humor on the subject see Chet Rong - The Worlds Worst Agile Coach on Standups.