Who should take notes in the Daily Scrum Meeting process?
Hi, dear users of this marvelous forum! I'm new in the Agile, and if more specifically, in the Scrum. In our university we are now taking a short course of Scrum. Every lesson we emulate the process of DSM. Our group is divided into two teams. I have Scrum Master role in my team. And after each DSM we are listening feedback from our teacher. We haven't had much practical DSM. Okey, I will go to the question itself. After the first DSM I heard from the teacher that in our DSM nobody write notes from each member of our team. In the next DSM I decided to pick up a notebook and a pen, and record the short version of answer from each team member. After this DSM I heard from the teacher that now I was like a project manager! :D In the next DSM I decided not to write down answers from everyone at all. But in this case my team sad that it is not right way. And I got the feeling that the team believes that the Scrum Master should take notes during the meeting. Please tell me how to be right in this situation, whether is it necessary at all to fix the answers on some kind of media (paper / digital), and if necessary, from who from the team? Thank you in advance!
I forgot to add that our purpose of fixing answers during the DSM is not to forget about what was discussed, so that at any moment you can look at and remember what you planned to discuss / look at some tasks moments / etc.
our purpose of fixing answers during the DSM is not to forget about what was discussed, so that at any moment you can look at and remember what you planned to discuss / look at some tasks moments / etc.
Would that step be necessary if the team continued to collaborate throughout the working day?
My thought is that everyone is responsible for taking notes to aid in their own memory. If there are disagreements later in the day, the person who took notes wins. :)
I'm joking, but only a little bit. There will be disagreements, people will be distracted, or will not remember exactly what was said.
Ideally, if the scrum meeting is to decide on a plan of action for the day, then the output of the meeting will be a set of tasks everyone agrees need to be done that day and knows what they have to do.
Hi Amir,
The following questions might be helpful to find the answer to your question:
- Who is responsible for the Daily Scrum?
- Which artifact is inspected and adapted during Daily Scrum?
- What information (also from the Daily Scrum) does that artifact make transparent?
Use the Scrum Guide to find answers to these questions and you will find the answer to your question.
And I got the feeling that the team believes that the Scrum Master should take notes during the meeting.
Here is a paper which may help you. Take a read and see what Barry writes about on scribing.
https://www.scrum.org/resources/8-stances-scrum-master
Thank you very much for your answers!
Here is a paper which may help you. Take a read and see what Barry writes about on scribing.
Thanks for the paper! I will read it, and I think it is very useful at the beginning of the journey.
But in this case my team sad that it is not right way. And I got the feeling that the team believes that the Scrum Master should take notes during the meeting.
This passage from the Scrum Guide drives my answer.
The Daily Scrum is an internal meeting for the Development Team. If others are present, the Scrum Master ensures that they do not disrupt the meeting.
In reality, the Daily Scrum is entirely for the Development Team and the Scrum Master doesn't even have to attend. In fact I often do not attend my team's Daily Scrum on purpose. The statement of your instructor that you have become a Project Manager is completely correct. Scrum Masters are not scribes. If the Development Teams need someone to take notes, then one of them should do so.If they need something to track the tasks that came out of the discussion, maybe they should consider a board of some kind where they can add/remove tasks as needed and create them as they discuss it during the Daily Scrum. After all according to the Scrum Guide (emphasis added by me):
Development Teams are structured and empowered by the organization to organize and manage their own work.
If your instructor has not already pointed you towards the Scrum Guide, I will.
https://www.scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
And if English is a second or third language for you, there might be a translation that will help you better. They can be found here
https://www.scrumguides.org/download.html
If you are learning Scrum, that should be required reading and your primary textbook, at least in my opinion.
I would say the question should be logically looked into from typical meeting etiquettes perspective on who takes notes in any meeting. and then the question answers itself. So many times senior person in the team or the person who is driving the meeting takes notes to avoid disagreement within the team or for the sheer reason that he is driving the meeting so assigning actions and then action owners.
Ultimately, this seems like an "ask the team" question. You may not need notes - make sure they are useful first. Ask the team if they can do it. Ask the person using the notes if they can take them.
Try an experiment, quietly take notes but don't distribute them and see if anyone insists on the notes.
The knee jerk answer would be scrum master, but that puts the SM into a position that they can be an impediment to team self-organization.