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Module: Induction Part 3

📋 Daily Scrum emails

Created 11 years ago by Duncan Hunter|

Modified 1 month ago by Suzanne Gibson

This item is locked to prevent an edit war. You must speak with a Bench Master before you can edit this item.

At SSW, unless the client opts out, we always send a written version of our Daily Scrum to the Product Owner every morning.

Why do we do this?

The main point of internal ones is so Management can see what everyone's working on, before bugging them. It gives insight into everyone's priorities.

For client ones, it's another bit of evidence that the client was notified of what we were doing before we did it, so they can't contest an invoice later.

Note: For Spec Reviews you don't need to send a Daily Scrum, it is an exception.

5 Steps to a Daily Scrum

  1. Every morning, draft an email To: {{ YOUR CLIENT OR SSWBenchMasters@ }}
    Cc: SSWDailyScrum@ssw.com.au + anyone you're working with that day
  2. Aim to do a Daily Scrum as soon as you arrive
  3. Follow the Daily Scrum Rule: Methodology - Do you do Daily Scrums?
  4. Then send the email, including any changes from the meeting

Note: all emails sent to SSWDailyScrum@ssw.com.au get auto-forwarded to Adam, but also sit in a mailbox so we can look back and see who did a Daily Scrum on a particular day.

Note: We have a PowerAutomate flow to send Daily Scrum reminder on 11am via Teams and an email reminder on 12pm. The email reminders are CC'd to Adam, and to a SSW Save Me Admin mailbox so we can look back and see who did not do a Daily Scrum on a particular day.

To make it send the message at correct time, please configure your timezone by going to CRM | Settings | Personalization Settings | Change the timezone based on your location image.png
Figure: Set the timezone based on your location in CRM

For a format example of a Daily Scrum email, use Outlook | New Email | Content Chooser | All Staff Email Templates | Select daily-scrum

Notes for your Daily Scrum email

  • Every item should mention if it is an email or PBI. It should include either the subject, or the title and link.
  • If an item is no longer relevant, you should use strikethrough to indicate it. Think of this as a PBI moving to the Removed state
  • If you are not blocked, don't include - ❌ Blocked - Nothing
  • You can even add an extra section call "Future Backlog" if you use AutoScrum
  • Scalability - Remove the email history each day to ensure your email doesn't become too large.

Who is your client for Internal Work?

  • If you inbox is > 100, join the Inbox Zero team (Talk to a bench master)
  • If your inbox is not 0, only work on your inbox
    • If a task in your inbox is blocked, ping and call the blocker every day to get it unblocked
    • If an email is for a Product, add it to the Product Backlog with Acceptance Criteria that it should be done by you, see https://www.ssw.com.au/rules/turn-emails-into-pbis/
      • If it's from Adam, assign yourself and add it to the Acceptance Criteria that it should be done by you
  • Your client is the Product Owner of the project you're on (Check CRM)

A good way to manage this is to keep a Trello board of large tasks that Adam would like you to complete - these tasks may be assigned when you are on client work and not in a position to complete them, but by keeping track of them in a Trello board it makes it easy to remember tasks and prioritize them.

  • Tip: on the day prior, send the SSW Bench Masters an email using Outlook | New Email | Content Chooser | All Staff Email Templates | Select back-on-the-bench

FAQ

Q: What if I only have one day until I go on client work?

A: There is no point starting on a new internal project. It is more productive to spend this time to address outstanding tasks in your inbox.

Tip: It's a good idea to address items relating to the same topic. E.g. Search your inbox for "rules".

Make sure to enter an appropriate timesheet.

This is in the same spirit of this related rule: Do you treat freebies as real customers?.

FYI - How we used to work (Solution A) and how we work (Solution B) by Adam

SSW Internal Work Strategy

Working on SSW projects is often harder than client projects because

  • Doing good Scrum is already hard
  • SSW projects do not have a constant team, as clients come first, therefore developers get pulled off SSW projects at any point. In addition, often devs are assigned tasks in areas Adam wants that person to develop their skills. That can make it tricky as 2 or 3 devs could be working on say 2 or 3 parts of an app eg. SugarLearning.

Adam likes a dev to finish a PBI from start to finish. He tries to minimize waste (minimize handoffs) and feels if one person started a complex PBI (e.g. form or report) and then another person tried to continue that a couple of days later, then maybe a late client booking caused even a 3rd developer to continue the PBI the next day.

SSW solutions (to all these handoffs):

Solution A - Continue Adhoc Kanban: Each developer picks up a small piece and, if blocked, gets a senior developer to assist them. Finish a PBI from start to finish (not continuing another person’s partial piece of work). In this way, SSW has 1 person working on 1 page from start to finish, and another person working on a performance problem on another page, and another person building a new report, rather than have one person start the report and another person finish the report.

In this way, we don’t work from 1 master backlog. Instead, Adam prefers you work on small tasks and he waits patiently for it to be done. Adam, as a Product Owner, has learned to be patient and wait for the developer to return from client work to then finish it. As developers, you need to understand that you won’t always know what parts of the application other developers are working on. Ping the Teams | Team tab

Solution B - Product Champion: Having a dedicated person leading an internal project: This person is the ‘SSW Product Champion’ for the product (that is Lead Developer + Scrum Master + Dedicated). They are allocated to that project for a set period of time (ranging 1-3 months) and look after the Backlog, Daily Scrums and Sprint Reviews. After their term, they hand over the reins to the next primary developer.

TODO TimePro Team: Automate this whole process as per TimePro Daily Scrum Free Lunch email

TODO Uly: Once this is automated in TimePro, record a video

To complete this task:

  • Send a Daily Scrum email for today and CC Seth.
  • Paste the subject of the email into the approval box.