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Daily Scrum Meeting Rules

Following are some of the rules which I could think ( & found from other sources) regarding the daily Scrum planning meeting

  • Scrum meeting should be for a small team of 4-8 members. Having a meeting for a bigger team is not beneficial. There is a high risk that it will become a status update.
  • This should be a timeboxed meeting of around 15 minutes. 
  • Hold the Daily Scrum in the same place at the same time every work day. The best time for the meeting is first thing in the day so that Team members think about what they did the day before and what they plan to do today.
  • Stand up – Ensure that team members are standing for this meeting. This will ensure that meeting will not exceed the normal duration as people will be eager to sit down. This will also help to focus on the discussion  otherwise people may get distracted with email or other “tasks”. 
  • Team members should address the Team. This is not a "Reporting to the Scrum Master" meeting. 
  •  If Product Owners are attending the call, they should refrain from asking status. Scrum has a separate meeting for this purpose – Sprint Demo/Review. Status can be obtained from taskboard also.
  •  All Team members are required to attend. If for some reason a Team member can't attend in person, the absent member must either attend by telephone or by having another Team member report on their status.
  •  Team members must be prompt. Team should start the meeting at the appointed time, regardless of who is present. Any members who are late pay a fine that is donated to a worthy charity! 
  • Decide some order for update like start with the person immediately to Scrum Master's  left and proceeding counter clockwise around the room until everyone has spoken. 
  •  Even Scrum Master is not required to attend this meeting. In Scrum Master’s absence or non-availability team should start the meeting.
  •  All team members should be present physically and mentally.
    o Avoid using cell phones, laptops, tablets etc.
    o Team members shouldn’t leave the room after giving the updates. They should remain till the end.     o Team members should actively listen and participate in updates from others. 
  •  Each Team member should respond to the following questions:
    o What have you done since the last Daily Scrum regarding this project?
    o What will you do between now and the next Daily Scrum meeting to achieve the sprint goals?
    o What impedes you from performing your work as effectively as possible? 
  • During the meeting only one person talks at a time. Everyone else listens without any side conversations. 
  •  When a Team member reports something that is of interest to other Team members or needs assistance from other Team members, any Team member can immediately arrange for all interested parties to get together after the Daily Scrum Meeting.
  • Non - Team members are welcome to attend the Daily Scrum Meetings but they are not allowed to talk, make faces or otherwise make their presence in the meeting obtrusive.
  • Bring experienced scrummasters or agile coaches to these meetings who can notice the problems and provide a constructive feedback.
These rules are more for new teams who are just beginning to use Scrum. If your team is following scrum for more than one year then you should definitely look into the next version of scrum meeting (scrum 2.0 :D ) 


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