The Daily Projector Update

All too often, this is how we see teams update their sprint backlog: Every morning during the daily scrum, the development team and Scrum master meet in front of a projector. The Scrum master pulls up the digital sprint backlog management tool and asks each developer for their status so she can update the sprint backlog accordingly. Dev team members stare lifelessly at the projector, waiting for their turn to speak. Very rarely does anyone update the sprint backlog at any other time.

Aside from the developers’ obvious lack of enthusiasm, what’s wrong with this scenario? First and foremost, the Scrum master shouldn’t be the one updating the sprint backlog. The development team should update it as often as they see fit. At minimum, they should update it once a day during the daily scrum. And if they need to update it more often than once a day, they’re free to do so.

All too often, we see sprint backlogs stay static after sprint planning—they become lifeless artifacts. Some dev teams think there’s no reason to constantly inspect or adapt the sprint backlog, but they really should. Inspecting and adapting it should be the main focus of the daily scrum. As we’ve discussed, the plan the dev team devised during sprint planning will likely substantially change as they execute the work. Continually updating the sprint backlog to reflect these changes creates important transparency around the complexity of the work both for the entire Scrum team and the wider organization. Dev team members need to be the ones who do the updating because nobody knows the nature of the work as well as they do—after all, they’re the ones performing it.

Obviously, development team members talk to each other outside of the Scrum events. They discuss requirements, technology, quality, testing, security, and all the other development activities. These conversations lead to trying new tactics to accomplish the sprint goal. These tactical changes should be reflected in updates to the sprint backlog.

Over the years, we’ve noticed that if we don’t hear laughter in a development team’s area every now and again, that’s a sign that the dev team is operating more like a golf team than a basketball team. Golf teams are made up of individual players who sync up at the end of a tournament, hoping that they have the best collective score. Basketball teams, on the other hand, progress down the court passing the ball to the open teammate, working together as a unit to score points. Golf teams don’t need updated sprint backlogs, but basketball teams do. Your dev team members should strive to work together like a basketball team—even if they’re not into sports.

If you find yourself doing the daily projector update during the daily scrum, there’s a simple solution: stop doing it. Go to work tomorrow and resist the temptation to touch the sprint backlog at all. Don’t even offer to pull it up on the projector. Heck, skip the daily scrum altogether tomorrow and see what happens. Continue not touching the sprint backlog, and notice whether it changes.

Most likely, the dev team will start updating the sprint backlog during the daily scrum, and maybe at other times throughout the day. If you don’t see them making any updates after a couple of days, pop into the next daily scrum and gently suggest they inspect the sprint backlog to check whether it needs any adaptations. But whatever you do, don’t make these edits yourself! Leave it to the dev team members.