A New Take on The 3 Questions

The ‘typical’ pattern of a DSU is focused on the 3 questions: What I did yesterday, What I plan to do today, and any Impediments I am facing.  Over emphasis on these 3 questions can easily kill agility and lean flow.  Here’s why.

What I Did Yesterday

This is far too often treated as a status report to the team, “I finished Story xyz” or “I’m still working on Story XYZ”.  Sharing this information is negating the value of collaboration outside of the DSU.  As a team we should be continuously working together through various best practices such as Pair Programming, limiting WIP, co-location, and transparency, that going into the DSU we already know what the others on the team were working on.  (Limiting WIP, which results in swarming on highest priority stories first, means there’s a good chance most/all of the rest of the team were working on the same story!) .  As a Scrum Master, you should be looking for this type of status report approach as a sign that the team is not really collaborating during the other 23 hours and 45 minutes since the last DSU.  This provides a great opportunity for process and team improvement, which is the core responsibility of every Scrum Master.

A better approach is to discuss what we did as a team yesterday.  A good practice is to review the team story board (or Kanban board) and have a general discussion on the highest priority stories that are in flight or soon to be taken on.  What have we learned about these stories?  What issues remain?  My personal advice is to change this first question to “What did we accomplish and learn as a team yesterday?”

What I Plan To Do Today

This is another area where we can far too easily create a team of individuals, rather than a true team working towards the same goal.  The plan for today (the next 24 hours on the Scrum diagram) needs to be a team plan, not an individual plan.  Understanding where we are at as a team towards Iteration Goals (and Team Objectives when working in SAFe®) is critical information.

Using a North American Football reference (the NFL in the USA)  is a good way to understand this concept.  When an NFL team runs an offensive play, attempting to move the ball down the field or potentially score points, after the play they all have a clear idea of how well the play went.  When they return to the ‘huddle’ (players gathered together in a circle to discuss what to do next) after the play, they only have 45 seconds to run the next play, so they don’t take a significant amount of time to discuss how the last play worked.  They all know if they gained yardage, if the play was successful, etc.  There may be nuances that are important (one player to another: “I was open for that play”) that are shared, but it quickly focuses on what to do next.  Was the last play a run?  Was it successful?  Let’s run the ball again!

A DSU is very similar to an NFL huddle.  The team should get back together and should already know how the last ‘play’ (the last 24 hours effort) went, and what the result was.  The DSU can then quickly focus on the best plan for the next 24 hours (or until the next DSU).  My recommendation for the second question is “What is our plan until the next DSU?”  This can include things like “Dinesh, can you pair with me on this part of the effort?”  “Dave, I’m going to need help with this test scenario, can we start right after the DSU?”.  A clear sign for a Scum Master that the DSU was effective is that the team has a shared plan walking out of the DSU, and each team member knows how they are going to contribute.   If this is not happening it’s another opportunity for team process improvement.

What are my Impediments?

This third area is also critical to keep at the team level, rather than an individual level.  The true concept of a team means that if one has an impediment, the whole team has an impediment.  Going back to the NFL huddle concept, if a wide receiver knows that the next play called means they are needed to run a deep route of 80 yards, and they just ran 80 yards and are too winded to complete this, they let the team know this isn’t the right play to run.  They share the impediment with the team, and the team takes on the impediment as one.  This is the same for an agile team; when there is an impediment for one it is an impediment for all, and it needs a team solution.  This approach is carried out in so many other scenarios, such as the military, but we tend to shrink away from this when it comes to agile teams.

My recommendation on this third question is just a bit modified, and then extended.  “What impediments do we have to our plan?  What can we do to adjust our plan to compensate or mitigate the impediment?” 

The End Result

Following these simple changes results in a DSU that is team focused, identifies improvement issues, and creates a collective ownership approach to planning and overcoming impediments.  Collaboration is critical amongst an agile team, but during the DSU the shared input into a new or adjusted plan until the next DSU is even more important.