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Recently I joined a new company which following daily scrum meeting opposite to Waterfall model which I am habitual(I have experience of 9+ years). In my previous companies I need to talk with my Project Manager sitting in office and in this company directly to International Client who sits in US. This Client is involved with team in each daily scrum meeting. Problem is that even I am working so hard to get my work done hard, Client is not happy with me. 3-4 times he has already asked me to speed up the things in front of other team members in daily meeting but with other team members his behaviour is good. I think there is some problem with my daily report status to Client and he is not getting feeling of how much hard-work I am doing for the same.

My Question is how to give effective daily status report about what I had done and issues faced to the client who is not very technical

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    So the client is in every standup meeting? Sounds kind of weird doesn't it. Some information here scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2012/november/… – Brandin Feb 28 '15 at 11:39
  • Ya Brandin he is actively involved in each daily scrum meeting and is behaves aggressively when my turn – kulwal_amit Feb 28 '15 at 11:42
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    I don't think that's an optimal process, not for you and not for the client. Does he really want to attend every meeting?? Probably the problem is not so much you but the process being used – Brandin Feb 28 '15 at 11:55
  • You are true, but as you know I can't change the process. Only what can I do is give him effective daily status to create good impression in front of him – kulwal_amit Feb 28 '15 at 11:58
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    Do you have any one else on your team that could bring it to the client's attention? Maybe offer to go over the Scrum details after the meeting? There are a whole host of reasons they should not be attending, and it sounds like it's impeding the purpose of your scrum. – Zibbobz Oct 28 '16 at 16:57
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A scrum standup meeting is not the same as a status report. It's supposed to be short information exchange about the status of the team members, focussing on problems that a team member cannot solve alone.

If all went well yesterday, your contribution could be

Yesterday I was working on task T1 of feature A. With that task done, I will work on task t2 today. There were no problems.

That's it. 15-30 seconds. What you did yesterday, what you will do today, any impediments. Telling people more is just wasting their time in a daily standup.

If you do have a problem you cannot solve yourself, mention it briefly:

Yesterday I was working on task T1 of feature A. As it turned out we do need access to the payroll database for this feature and I don't have access. To continue today, I will need access or the help of somebody who has access.

The natural response would be to not discuss this problem in the meeting, but instead, someone leading the meeting would probably say something like

Ok, noted, lets solve this problem right after the meeting. Next one please.

The point of the daily meeting is to have a short status update. It's not the place for lengthy explanations or retelling of peoples day-to-day work. Be short. be precise. Do not waste peoples time with details.

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  • If client ask for how much time it will take will it be ok to tell him and explain him details about why it will take this much of time ? – kulwal_amit Feb 28 '15 at 14:28
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    That depends. Both the client as well as that question do not belong into a SCRUM daily standup meeting. You could for example say something like "It will take two days. If you are interested in the details, maybe we can talk after the meeting". – nvoigt Feb 28 '15 at 14:45
  • Your explanation is very convincing. Can you help me how to represent things I done in such a way that client will get feeling of I am doing lot of work(Even if it is offline and not in standup meeting) – kulwal_amit Feb 28 '15 at 14:51
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    You may want to ask another question for that. It's more than I (or somebody else) could explain in a comment. – nvoigt Feb 28 '15 at 15:00
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You are not doing scrum. You are doing something weird that superficially resembles scrum.

The client shouldn't be in a daily standup meeting. The client should absolutely one hundred percent not be involved with you. The targets of a scrum are not achieved by individuals, they are achieved (or not achieved) by the whole team. And the client shouldn't be involved with the team, the client should be talking to the product manager.

After one sprint is finished, that's when the whole team presents to the product manager and to the client. That's when the client talks to the product manager about what he wants, and what the priorities are. But what is going on in your place, that is absolutely ridiculous and totally counter productive.

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  • As I understand it, it's fine for the client to be in the daily standup meeting but it is not for them. Aside from that you are totally correct--the whole idea of Scrum is that the team self organizes and does its own work for the duration of the sprint and it is not for the client to intervene or evaluate. The time to evaluate is in the Sprint Review or the Sprint Demo. Bottom line, the team needs its own time and space. – catfood Oct 28 '16 at 18:41
  • As a scrum master, I would not let the client be at daily standups. The standup is a place where team members need to be able to speak freely, and they can't do that if the client is there. Let the PO update the client daily if need be, but clients don't belong at stand up. – Kathy Oct 28 '16 at 22:52
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I completely agree with the other answers that say that it's hugely counterproductive for the customer to be in a daily standup. All sorts of issues will be raised that don't impact the customer, but which they might try to respond to, and the customer's input on a daily frequency will distract and annoy the team. It sounds to me like the customer does not trust your process, and wants to be in daily control of what the team is doing. That's almost certain to make things worse. Whatever process you are doing, it is not Scrum.

My suggestions for how to change this are as follows:

  1. Try to convince the customer to accept a weekly or biweekly meeting (once a sprint) at which someone will sit down with him and give him a detailed account of where the project is and what impacts on the time line there might be. Explain to the customer why their input on a daily basis is counterproductive. This is a well recognized and effective approach, but I suspect your customer won't take it. They are too focussed on being in control
  2. If they won't do that, try your absolute best to convince the customer to sit down with someone once a day, after the daily meeting to review progress, and allow them to provide input. Somebody then forwards that input when appropriate to the team. It probably won't be appropriate that often. This is probably the best result you can hope for.
  3. Try to enforce the rule that nobody outside the team should talk. The customer can provide any feedback to a single person after the meeting has dispersed.
  4. If none of that is acceptable, you might consider having two daily scrum meetings. At one only information fit for communication to the customer is raised. No problems should be discussed. Only "I'm working on this". The second happens without the customer, and allows the team to actually discuss their real problems. Note that I'm not saying lie to the customer, just don't give any information they don't need. Frankly, this is a terrible solution and your developers will hate it, but they might hate it less than having the customer interfering on a daily basis.
  5. If all else fails, remember the customer is always right and is paying for what they get. If they want to make the development slower and more complicated than it has to be, that is their right. Be extra nice to the developers, and promise to move tem to a different customer as soon as possible.
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Is there anyway you could get results in front of the client more quickly? If you meet with the client everyday, why not show him the changes from the previous day?

Outside groups view your work as black magic. Try to involve them more and educate them (to a reasonable level) on the valuable work you do. Be specific on any bottlenecks and roadblocks.

It may also be possible that your client is looking for specific things to be done. Is it possible to re-prioritize your scheduled work and get some of the features they are looking for done first?

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    These guys are (trying to do) scrum. This is a well tested procedure that leads to successful delivery of software. What this client does just interferes with what the team is doing. He doesn't need more involement and education, he needs to be told (by the scrum master and the product manage) to BACK OFF. – gnasher729 Oct 28 '16 at 17:59
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    +1 The time for involvement and education is at the Sprint Review, the Sprint Demo, and the Sprint Planning meeting. The daily standup is for the team. Any effort to show results from day to day will interfere with the more important goal of delivering results in the duration of the sprint. Or hey, you could do one-day sprints. – catfood Oct 28 '16 at 18:43
  • Sorry, I was going for people over process. The client is clearly uncomfortable with the team, and is appearing to deal with it by daily complaining. I would want to improve the relationship by making him aware that the development team is made up of real people doing their best. I would really doubt that most non-technical clients would continue to demand daily pair-programming sessions (or minor improvements) over any significant period of time. – rickjr82 Oct 29 '16 at 3:39

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