Daily Standup Uniting the Agile Force
Welcome back to the next step in our agile methodology breakdown. The next step after sprint planning is the daily standup.
What is that, you ask? This is a brief yet powerful ceremony designed to foster communication, collaboration, and transparency within the team. Also known as the Daily Scrum, this meeting occurs at the same time and place every day, lasting no more than 15 minutes.
What Happens During a Scrum?
The purpose of each meeting is to update the team and clients on what’s happening and how they can help. During the Daily Standup, team members provide updates on three key questions:
- What did I accomplish yesterday?
- What am I working on today?
- Are there any obstacles impeding my progress?
By answering these questions, team members gain insights into each other's work, identify potential roadblocks, and coordinate efforts to overcome challenges. The standing format is intentional, promoting brevity and focus.
In some cases, the team divides the session into two parts - Ask and Give. Ask involves what the team member needs from the other members or clients. Give involves what the team member can deliver to the customer or other members to move the project forward.
Suppose there is a team working on a web development project, the daily standup would look something like this:
| Team Member | Accomplishments | Today’s Taks | Potential Obstacles |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Implemented the product listing page with responsive design. | Work on the product detail page and address some UI tweaks. | Need some clarification on the preferred layout for the product detail page. |
| 2 | API endpoints for user authentication. | Start integrating the authentication endpoints on the frontend and testing user registration. | Waiting for the API documentation from a third-party service for the payment gateway. |
| 3 | Testing on the checkout process. | Conduct regression testing after changes and begin testing the payment gateway integration | No obstacles currently. |
Summing Up
By keeping the meeting short and to the point, the team maximizes efficiency and minimizes disruptions to the workflow. The Daily Standup serves as a pulse check, ensuring that the team remains aligned, responsive, and ready to adapt to changes in real-time.
Stay tuned for the next installment in our series to learn how sprints are reviewed once they occur. How do teams realign and plan the next sprint once the first sprint is completed and reviewed? More on this in the next part of the series.
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