Tips on Knowing if Your Daily Scrum Sucks

Below are some tell-tale signs that your daily Scrum sucks.

1. The team members stand at attention and salute the Scrum Master.
2. There is an infestation of clucking chickens.
3. You have a hard time hearing everyone over the loud yawning.
4. There’s lots of very descriptive, helpful answers to “what did you do since the last meeting?” like “stuff”, “things”, or even better…”nothing”.
5. The team members who did nothing since the last meeting happen to be the “rock stars” pre-Scrum…oh, and they never, never, ever, ever have anything standing in their way.
6. Every meeting reminds you of the movie “Groundhog Day”.
7. The first 5 minutes is spent waiting for the projector to warm up.
8. You get to meet a new member of the team almost everyday, while never having a chance to say goodbye to the dearly departed.
9. Most’s answers to “what are you going to do today”,  are “get sign-off”.
10. Big Brother is there to make sure the team is “on track”.
11. Most meetings consist of discussing episodes of “Fringe”.
12. The meetings are typically very lonely, as you are the only one that shows up.
13. Bullies are allowed to…well…bully.
14. Everyone has their laptops open IMing each other about “how stupid this meeting is”, while the Scrum Master or Product Owner is assigning tasks.
15. You get to hear intriguing, long presentations about each and every detail on things like how to install and set up subversion, or maybe even if you’re lucky you may hear why Lisp is the best programming language in the world!

While many of these are a bit tongue-in-cheek, they actually represent the many dysfunctional daily Scrums I’ve attended.  And yes, I’ve been guilty of participating in the dysfunction.

So, let’s hear from you guys!  What kind of signs have YOU seen that your daily Scrum sucks?