Do we really need the daily stand-up? And if yes, how can we make it more effective, engaging and fun?

1. How to make your
daily stand-up more
engaging?
Boris Kazarez
March 2017
Agile Marathon (Google campus, Tel-Aviv)

2. About me
 Boris Kazarez
 Developing software since the age of 13.
 Agile development fan since 2004.
 Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master (PSM III).
 Development Manager and Agile coach at iMDsoft.
 Married +2

3. What is your process?
a. Scrum
b. Kanban
c. XP
d. Mix
e. Waterfall

4. Daily Scrum vs Daily Standup

5. How not to turn your Daily Standup
into “Zombie Daily Standup”?

6. Gamification?

7. What is the purpose of your Daily
Standup?

8. Daily Standup
 It is a planning meeting for the next 24 hours!

9. What is the right question?

10. How can you make the planning
more effective?

11. Focus on your (Sprint) Goal!

12. How can we do that exactly?

13. Let’s first make sure we all
speak the same language?

14. What is Scrum?
a. An Agile software development methodology.
b. A framework for developing complex products.
c. A software project management methodology for iterative
software development.

15. “Scrum is a framework for developing and sustaining complex
products.”
The Scrum Guide™

16. What is Kanban?
a. A project management methodology that originated from
Toyota.
b. A Lean product development process.
c. A Lean software development methodology.
d. A method for continuous improvement.

17. “Kanban is a method for defining, managing and improving
services that deliver knowledge work”
Essential Kanban Condensed
“Kanban is not a software development lifecycle methodology or
an approach to project management.”
“Kanban must not be thought of as a software development
lifecycle process or a project-management process. Kanban is a
change-management technique …”
-David Anderson

18. A few words about Kanban
Thanks to Andy Carmichael and David J Anderson, Essential Kanban Condensed

19. Scrum + Kanban
 Both Scrum and Kanban come from TPS.
 In Kanban we start with what we do NOW and evolve
incrementally (so we can start with Scrum).
 A good way to help Scrum improve is to bring in some
Kanban practices, things that Scrum had forgotten...

20. What can be really helpful?
 Limiting WiP.
 Visualizing user stories (PBIs) value stream.
 Make policies explicit.
 Manage flow.

21. Visualize “work” (not tasks)

22. Limit your WiP
 Limiting WIP is often the first step to shift the emphasis
from starting to finishing.
 By limiting the work-in-progress, we allow our teams to focus,
working at a sustainable pace with quality output.

23. Limit your WiP
(2) (3) (2) (2)
(2)
(5)

24. Make all policies explicit
 It is hard to make improvements if every team member has a
different standard.
 An example can be a DoD per column before moving work forward
(checklists, ground rules).

25. Reduce the PBI/story size
 Larger items take more time to process
 More queues (extra WiP)
 More variability
 Slice smaller vertical user stories (PBIs)
 up to 3 days to get DONE!
 More opportunities to inspect and adapt on a daily basis

26. Let’s mix all the ingredients…

27. Daily Standup
 What did I do yesterday?
 What I’m doing today?
 Is there anything blocking me?

28. Daily Standup with Kanban
1. “Walk the board” from right to left
2. Ask the probing questions to identify issues and
decide on next steps

29. Daily probing questions
1. Is any of our work hidden?
2. Are the next user stories blocked in some way (not refined, have impediments)?
3. Are there user stories that we can unblock?
4. Which user stories are moving slowly?
5. Are there any bottlenecks in the queues (WiP is exceeded)?
6. Is there a demand for backlog refinement (grooming)?
7. Are we clear about what's next?
8. Are we doing everything we can to minimize waiting time?
9. Are there any queues that we can clean-up (swarm)?
10. Are we respecting our WiP limits?
11. Is anyone assigned too many tasks?
12. Should we act on user stories owned by absent team members?
Thanks to Brendan Wovchko, Huge I/O

30. 1. Is any of our work hidden?

31. 2. Are the next user stories blocked
in some way (not refined, have
impediments)?

32. 3. Are there user stories that we
can unblock?

33. 4. Which user stories are
moving slowly?

34. 5. Are there any bottlenecks in the
queues (WiP is exceeded)?

35. 6. Is there a demand for backlog
refinement (grooming)?

36. 7. Are we clear about what's
next?

37. 8. Are we doing everything we can
to minimize waiting time?

38. 9. Are there any queues that we
can clean-up (swarm)?

39. 10. Are we respecting our WiP
limits?

40. 11. Is anyone assigned too many
tasks?

41. 12. Should we act on user stories
owned by absent team members?

42. The game
 One team member observes the daily stand-up from a side.
 If s/he is able to identify a problem that others didn’t notice
– s/he wins!
Thanks to Brendan Wovchko, Huge I/O

43. Wrapping up…
 Focus on how the team can move the work forward by using probing
questions
 Discuss daily how to achieve the Sprint goal
 Turn it into an effective planning meeting

44. And use a physical board 

45. Questions?

46. https://www.linkedin.com/in/boriskazarez/