Daily Scrum Meeting

Owned by Dawn Seymour
Last updated: Jan 17, 2017 by Daniel Kayiwa
2 min read

The daily scrum meeting is a focused, 15-minute meeting for people contributing to the development of OpenMRS to come together and provide updates in the development process.

What to Report in the Scrum:

Each developer answers the following questions:

  1. What did you accomplish since the last meeting?

  2. What do you plan to accomplish before the next meeting?

  3. What are your blockers?

  4. Discussion points - Items that are not blockers but need a group decision on after the daily scrum is completed

Pro tip: Keep a text file open that is a log of your activities. Update it as often as possible. (Perhaps set a scheduled task or cron job to open it for you every hour)

Where to meet

  • The daily scrum meeting takes place on the #openmrs channel on freenode.

Meeting schedule

The daily scrum meeting occurs at 14:30-14:45 UTC on weekdays except for OpenMRS holidays. When Daylight Saving Time is being observed in the US, daily scrum meeting takes place at 15:00 UTC on Thursdays i.e. after the Developers Forum. Be sure to add the correct days and times into your calendars with a 10-minute reminder prior to each meeting, so you have time to prepare your daily report.

 

Daylight Saving Time (ask Google for this year's dates)

Time of Daily Scrum Meeting

Daylight Saving Time (ask Google for this year's dates)

Time of Daily Scrum Meeting

Yes (mid Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, early Nov)

14:30 UTC (Mon-Wed and Fri), 15:00 UTC (Thu)

No (mid Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb, early Mar)

14:30 UTC (Mon-Fri)

Making the meeting efficient

  • Be available at the proper start time.

  • Write your update 10 minutes before the daily scrum meeting.

    • Set your calendar reminder alarm for 10 minutes before the daily scrum meeting. When the alarm occurs, write up your work and prepare for the meeting.

    • The update should be a summary of the following:

      1. What you worked on during the previous day

      2. What you are currently working on today

      3. What you will continue to work on after the meeting has finished

      4. A list of any blockers, or items that are slowing down your progress

  • Stay focused on the IRC channel window.

    • If the daily scrum meeting were in person, we'd all be standing up. That's not easy to do on IRC, so it's important to pay attention.

    • The biggest delay in the meeting occurs when we focus on other windows on our computer. Either close or minimize those windows before the meeting.

  • Save all problem solving for the end of the meeting.

    • Updates, output, blockers, and change-of directions will go out quickly during the scrum from each individual. Afterwards, the group will go over problem-solving for the blockers that need to be resolved.

  • Be honest about blockers!

    • Blockers are issues that are getting in the way of doing other work, or challenging issues that are taking up a lot of time.

    • The main reason for the daily scrum meeting is to share information about blockers and resolve them together.

    • If you have worked on the same problem for more than 1 hour (even if you think you know the solution!) state it as a blocker.