Scrum Meetings...Should I Attend?

It's been a while working as true Agile Follower but as it happens with other Agile apostle, the same happens with me too...And the following Question captures my Mind....

• What the hell I do in Scrum meeting?
• Nobody contributes to my work, than why do I Attend Scrum meetings?
• I have other meetings which are more important than this stupid Scrum meeting
• Scrum meetings are just a waste
• I don’t have anything to say, than why should I waste my 30 minutes just listening to others

All valid questions and is because of any one/ more of the following: -

1. I don’t know what is Scrum meeting
2. We might not be doing it in a right way
3. We discuss a lot in scrum meeting, which many folks doesn’t have interest
4. I don’t understand the concept of Scrum Teams
5. I really don’t want to collaborate

Phew!!!!!!!! A Lot of brainstorming and than I make myself remember the basic concept of Scrum Meetings/ Teams….
Let me share the same with friends and help them in pacifying their queries.

Scrum Meetings (#1, #2 and #3): -

Scrum meetings are stand up meetings in which every team member needs to respond to the following 3 Questions (No Escape): -

1. What I did yesterday
2. Plan for the Today
3. Any impediments which might be blocking my work

Answer to all the above questions should not take more than 2-3 minutes (MAX.) of each individual and based on the response we can define the Action Plan for resolving the impediments.
Not only this team members are free to raise their hand and are encouraged to contribute towards the discussion (Basic Principle of Scrum meeting)

Generally what Scrum Teams do?: -


In initial Days of Scrum - In Scrum meetings folks are so excited that they start giving the solution to the individual problems and same consumes a lot of time, which probably would not be of any interest to other folks, which I think Scrum master should control.

But these should be done in a very careful manner as it could be taken in a negative manner by the Scrum team and they might be hostile towards the whole process.

I would leave it to SM to takie care of all these issues

A year down the line and the now Scrum meetings are more of a formality where people start giving their status (instead of updates) and nobody contributes anything.

Again we are loosing the Basic essence of Scrum where it encourages the collaborations and not just Daily Updates...Again I will leave it to SM's to rejuvenate the team...

Scrum Teams (#4, #5): -

Scrum teams are based on the following principles: -

1. Scrum Team
• Self Organized/ managed Teams...No Leader…every body leads
• Everybody Support each other
• Open minded folks and ready to adapt the ever changing environment
• Capable of taking decisions but of-course well communicated
• Discipline – One of the important characteristics
• Last but not least, enthusiasm is in the blood of every team member
2. Scrum Master
• Controls the meetings
• Encourage people to collaborate
• Make sure the process is correctly used and all are benefited

After reading all this if anyone still don’t want to collaborate than I would say that he/ she is staying in a closed world where his thought process is stuck and he is restricting himself for new ideas, which is a bad sign…Not Good at all for the whole process.

Though nobody is perfect and Yes there are areas of improvement in every individual/ process and it is the scrum teams who needs to improve it and make it Perfect.

I hope after reading this all of friends would agree that Scrum meetings are equally important and beneficial in comparison to our other meetings.