Alternative questions to make your daily sync more valuable
Although the Scrum Guide no longer promotes the 3 questions as a technique for conducting dailies [1], the opinion has spread on the web that 3 questions should be used as a guideline for leading through the daily.
- What did you do yesterday?
- What will you do today?
- Are there any impediments in your way?
Dailies that focus exclusively on these 3 questions are most common: mechanical, uninspiring, individual focused and monotonous.
If the daily meeting is not used to promote communication, identify impediments, encourage rapid decision-making and/or eliminate the need for other meetings, the following anti-patterns can be observed:
- Disengagement - People seem to be there just to give their update, not interested in the progress others are sharing.
- The same answers come up again and again. People seem to be stuck working on the same things, progress is stalled.
If the team decides to work with guiding questions, the following questions can be used to stimulate the discussions [2]:
- What are we doing today to help the team achieve its goals?
- Where can we get help today to advance what I'm working on?
- Does everyone have what they need to focus on our top priority?
- What could we accomplish today if we pulled together as a team?
- How can we get X item done, and who has the capacity to help us do it?
- Anyone need an extra set of eyes on something?
- What small change would help our team achieve our current goal?
- What successes do I want to share? Where should we celebrate?
- What learning do I want others to benefit from?
- How could we make our daily more meaningful to us?