Some topics never get old. One of them is how to do a well run, structured Daily that doesn’t eat up unnecessary time and doesn’t cause the developers to fall to sleep. Because I am often asked how to achieve this, here’s how I like to perform the Daily:
- Part 1: Daily
- (Assumes a remote meeting with Microsoft Teams) Everybody raises their hands with the raise-hands-function in Teams, creating the order of speaking and optimising meeting time
- Everybody answers the following questions in a short and precise manner:
- What did you achieve?
- What are you working on right now?
- What is blocking you? / What do you need help with?
- Remember to keep technical discussions out of this part of the daily. It’s all about providing a brief status for your team members. If technical issues come up, organise a meeting in part 3 by asking who wants to be part of the discussion and scheduling a meeting after the daily.
- Part 2: Organisational topics
- Optional, only if needed
- Everybody may provide reminders or hints for topics like vacancies, upcoming appointments, next milestones, …
- Again, keep it brief! Just mention facts, no discussions.
- Part 3: Detailed discussion
- Optional, only if needed
- Only needed team members - fewer is better!
One moderator, which can either be a team member or a dedicated agile coach, facilitates this structure. He or she keeps the meeting on track and making sure that the time is used efficiently. This moderator shares her screen, showing the agile board and highlighting every story that is being talked about. This gives every participant a visual clue about the current topic.
(Image Public Domain, https://pxhere.com/en/photo/560302)
