Daily Scrum Question About Distractions

Do you see opportunities for the Scrum Master to provide timely coaching, and to explain which behaviors are helpful and which are not helpful when implementing Scrum?

Hi Jeremy Saal, 

Step 1: As you are saying inexperienced Scrum Team. The main solution should be training Scrum/Agile/Lean training program for new joiners or staff who is new to Agile/Scrum.

Usually it needs to be done by either:

<1> Scrum Master in the team

<2> Or by the continious improvement team (Who is responsible/accountable in an organisation) to new staff and existing staff who is new to Agile development.

Step 2: Need to explain the Daily Scrum time box (15 minutes), reason, and what is the agenda for daily scrum (What is expected to share in the daily scrum by each individual). Actually the daily scrum is mainly for the development team to be present on the same time and same place. Scrum master is optional and scrum master is to monitor and remove the impediments. And if require coach the team in case if they do not follow the time box duration and each individual not follow the Scrum process.

Assume there are 6 staff then each staff get approx. 2 minutes to explain ( What was done yesterday, what is the plan for today, is there any dependencies, is there any risks, etc.). If the staff are more than 9 then the team needs to be split logically. 

I hope this clarify your question.

Absolutely, Ian.  I guess you would say that these behaviors are an impediment to the team so I, as the Scrum Master, should handle them appropriately.

Thank you!

It's funny you mention this Jeremy. I'm working with a new scrum team as well and we have had a few daily stand ups that are very scrum content light and heavy on chatting about movies and such. The times that were full of distractions I allowed because I wanted to see how it would affect the team. Interestingly enough, the days when they fooled around during the stand up were the days that were full of chaos and uncertainty; they wasted a ton of time the rest of the day talking about problems because they didn't get on the same page from the get go. When I called this out to them, it helped them realize that the stand up is not something that I am forcing just to check the box that we did the stand up. They realized how helpful it was to know what everyone is working on because they were much more efficient on days when they utilized the stand up for the true purpose. 

With that said, the stand up can still be fun and lighthearted. We have a foam football that we pass around. We don't go in a circle; the person with the ball shares and tosses it to someone else. It's small but makes for a little break of monotony. It's good to find a way to keep the stand up from being insanely boring, just make sure you stay on target. 

Thank you for sharing your experience, Curtis.  It's amazing how those 15 minutes can affect the rest of the Developer's day.  I appreciate the insight and totally agree with keeping it fun. 

Thank you, Vijayakumar.  I appreciate the great details you provided.