Daily Scrum: What it is, agenda, and anti-patterns

In rugby, you can’t play without a Scrum, and in Agile, you can’t sprint without one. When done right, the daily Scrum is a core component of Agile — a quick pulse check that keeps teams aligned, focused, and ready to adapt. The daily Scrum creates focus for the team, ensuring everyone is working toward the sprint goal. If done wrong, it turns into another long status meeting nobody wants to attend.

The daily Scrum (also known as a ‘daily huddle’ in some Agile teams) is a 15-minute event in which developers inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adjust the plan for the next 24 hours. The goal is to leave with an actionable plan for the next day.

• Who attends: Developers (not stakeholders or managers)
• Why it matters: Keeps the team aligned, adaptable, and focused on outcomes
• How Wrike helps: Wrike brings real-time updates into one place, so every daily Scrum starts with clarity

In this guide, we’ll cover the daily Scrum, who should be involved, how to run it effectively, and the anti-patterns that drain its value.

What is a daily Scrum?

According to the 2020 Scrum Guide, the daily Scrum is a 15-minute event held during the current sprint. During this time, developers inspect progress toward the sprint goal and adapt the plan for the next 24 hours. 

The daily Scrum’s 15-minute timebox isn’t meant to solve every problem on the spot. Instead, it creates transparency, triggers inspection, and spotlights where follow-up conversations are needed.

This event is for developers only. The product owner or Scrum master can join if they are actively working on items in the sprint backlog, but otherwise, their presence risks turning the event into a status update. By focusing on developers, the conversation stays grounded in the work and the sprint goal — not stakeholder check-ins.

The daily Scrum exists to create transparency and adaptation. In practice, that means asking questions like:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What are you doing today?
• Is there any issue affecting the delivery of your tasks?

To keep things simple, the daily Scrum should happen at the same place and time every day. For distributed Scrum team members, that can be a quick virtual call. This consistency makes it easier to track progress toward the sprint goal and helps everyone stay aligned. It’s the one dedicated moment each day for the team to sync up, share updates, and plan next steps together. 

Some teams even hold the meeting standing up as a reminder to keep it short and focused.

Daily Scrum vs. daily standup

The terms daily Scrum and daily standup often get tossed around as if they’re the same thing. Although “standup” can refer to a daily Scrum, the latter is technically more purpose-driven and tactical than a standup.

A standup is a generic term used by teams to describe a short, daily meeting where the team shares updates and aligns on priorities. On the other hand, the daily Scrum is a formal Scrum event defined in the Scrum Guide. It focuses on daily progress updates concerning the Sprint Goal. 

The only consistent trait between these two meetings is that they’re meant to be short — hence the tradition of “standing up” for both of them.

Daily Scrum agenda (15-minute playbook)

A daily Scrum without a plan is just meaningless chatter; with an agenda, it becomes the team’s most precise tool for staying on course.

Purpose over questions

A common misconception is that the daily Scrum is a round-robin of three questions: What did you do yesterday? What will you do today? What’s blocking you? While those prompts can help, they’re not the event’s purpose.

The real purpose is to check progress on the sprint goal and adjust course if needed. It’s about outcomes, not status updates. Keep the sprint goal front and center and ask:

• Are we still on track to hit our target?
• What’s getting in the way?
• Do we need to shift priorities or redistribute work?

When you keep it focused, the daily Scrum becomes a quick strategy huddle — a way for the whole team to realign, stay nimble, and keep the sprint moving forward.

Format options

There’s no single “right way” to run a daily Scrum. Your Scrum team should adapt the format to what best supports transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Here are three common approaches:

1. The classic three questions

Traditionally, Scrum teams ask several questions (“What did I do yesterday?”, “What will I do today?”, and “Are there any impediments?”). While this format can create rhythm, it often drifts into status-reporting territory. The Scrum Guide doesn’t mandate these questions — they’re just one way of operating. Use them if they help, drop them if they don’t.

2. Walking the board

This shifts the daily Scrum from individual updates to the actual flow of work, moving item by item from “Done” back to “In Progress” to see what’s needed to push tasks forward. This approach promotes a “start finishing, stop starting” mindset, surfaces blockers quickly, and keeps the team focused on completing work together rather than giving status reports.

3. Tracking work-item age

This is where you look at how long tasks have been sitting in progress. Instead of reviewing every item, highlight the oldest ones using a Kanban board with color-coded indicators, a WIP aging chart, or a Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD). When an item lingers, the team can ask: “Why is this stuck?” They can then decide if they need to “swarm” — pull in extra hands to get it moving again.

This practice, borrowed from Kanban, helps Scrum teams surface hidden risks, prevent work from piling up midstream, and maintain a more sustainable pace across the sprint.

If issues arise during the daily Scrum that require more time, the team can schedule detailed discussions or other meetings immediately after the daily Scrum to address them and ensure the sprint goal is met.

Remote and asynchronous daily Scrum

Remote or distributed teams don’t need to bend every calendar to a single time zone. When schedules don’t overlap, run the daily Scrum asynchronously: Each developer posts a short update in a shared channel or project tool within a defined 24-hour window, and the Scrum team adapts the plan around the sprint goal. 

Remember, the event is still time-boxed and purpose-driven; async is a format choice, not a license to stretch the meeting into an all-day drip.

This is where Wrike shines for remote teams. With Wrike’s integrations and boards, you can centralize updates and maintain a 24-hour rhythm.

Wrike dashboards give you a clear, time-stamped picture of progress, so it’s easy to spot who’s posted and what’s changed. If someone flags an obstacle, Wrike makes it simple to tag teammates, create follow-up tasks, or adjust priorities.

Benefits of the daily Scrum

Daily Scrum benefits are plentiful, and make this Scrum ceremony essential. But why should you hold it, and what value does it bring? According to a recent State of Scrum report, 85% of respondents said Scrum has improved the quality of their work life. Here are a few of the ways a daily Scrum can be beneficial:

Keeps the sprint goal visible

It’s easy for teams to get lost in task lists and lose sight of the bigger picture. The daily Scrum re-centers the conversation on the sprint goal. Every update is filtered through the lens of “Are we still on track to deliver what we committed?” This focus helps developers prioritize the right work and avoid getting pulled into distractions.

Reduces misalignment

Even with a clear sprint backlog, work can drift when people assume progress is evident. A 15-minute sync keeps small misalignments from turning into costly detours. It ensures developers leave with a shared understanding of what’s most important for the next 24 hours. In distributed or fast-moving teams, this alignment compounds into smoother handoffs and less rework.

Surface blockers early

The daily Scrum isn’t about fixing problems but about exposing them. When a task is stuck, the Scrum team can quickly agree to swarm it or schedule a follow-up. This early warning system saves days of delay, especially when dependencies cross teams or tools.

Improves transparency and accountability

Because the event is time-boxed, visible, and centered on work items, it creates a lightweight accountability loop. Transparency is about making progress and impediments clear to the whole team. That openness encourages collective ownership: blockers aren’t “your problem,” they’re “our problem.”

Daily Scrums improve communication

Daily Scrums improve communication by providing a regular forum for team members to share updates, identify impediments, and coordinate efforts. This leads to better team coordination, faster problem solving, and often sparks further detailed discussions and adaptations.

Improves self-management

The daily Scrum improves self-management by helping developers organize their work independently, focus on sprint goals, and adapt their plans as needed. This enhances team autonomy and decision making throughout the sprint.

Common anti-patterns (and fixes in Wrike)

Scrum meetings are essential — we know that for sure. But the daily Scrum must be run properly for an effective meeting. Below are some mistakes many teams make during their daily Scrum meetings that should be avoided, and how Wrike helps solve them.

With Wrike, teams can keep their daily Scrum sharp, visible, and aligned — regardless of team size or where they’re working from.

Daily Scrum examples by team type

No two teams run the daily Scrum the same way. Here’s how different team types can make it work.

Marketing teams

For marketing teams, the daily Scrum is about keeping campaign execution predictable when deadlines are tight and dependencies pile up. Walking the campaign board helps teams zero in on approvals, handoffs, and bottlenecks that can stall momentum.

Here’s how the three questions method might play out in a marketing team’s daily Scrum:

• Content marketer: “Yesterday, I finished the blog draft for the product launch and handed it to design for layout. Today I’ll work on SEO briefs for the landing page, but I’m still waiting on messaging sign-off — without it, I can’t finalize headlines.”
• Designer: “Yesterday, I started the layout for the blog draft and reviewed two ad concepts. Today, I’ll finalize visuals for the blog and prep assets for social and legal feedback on the ad concepts, which haven’t come through, so that’s holding me back from finishing.”
• Campaign manager: “Yesterday, I set up the email campaign framework in Wrike and synced with the channel team. I’ll slot in approved content and schedule QA today, but the email approval is lagging. If it slips another day, we’ll need to shuffle other assets to stay on track.”

IT/software teams

The daily Scrum is about keeping the sprint board healthy for IT and software teams and ensuring smooth workflow. In practice, these conversations are short and specific. Here are sample prompts your team might use when using the walking the board method:

• Developer: “This bug fix has been under review for three days. Can someone pick it up today so it doesn’t block the next feature?”
• QA engineer: “Two test cases have been open since yesterday. If devs can resolve those by noon, I’ll clear the queue before standup tomorrow.”
• Scrum team member: “We’ve got three tasks stuck in ‘In Progress’ past the expected time. Should we swarm on the oldest one to unblock delivery?”

Professional services

For professional services teams, deadlines are client-facing, making aging work items a big red flag. Reviewing the deliverables board through the lens of “what’s been sitting too long?” helps surface dependency risks before they derail timelines.

Here’s what a daily Scrum using the work-item age approach might sound like:

• Project manager: “The requirements doc has been in ‘Waiting for Client’ for five days — if it hits seven, our build schedule slips. Who’s following up today?”
• Consultant: “This analysis task has been ‘In Progress’ for six days, when the average is three. I’ll need a hand to push it over the finish line.”

Account lead: “Two design deliverables have been stuck in review for four days. Let’s reassign reviewers so we don’t hold up the client handoff.”

How Wrike supports the daily Scrum

Now that we have answered the question, “What is a daily Scrum?”, let’s see how to implement Scrum meetings using project management software like Wrike. By using our platform, teams can bring clarity to their sprint backlog, track user stories, and keep meetings short and focused. 

This also supports rapid adaptation in fast-paced companies. Tactus, an innovative touch-screen maker, was able to shorten its Scrum period from a whole week down to just one day using Wrike.

Fitbit’s marketing and creative teams used Wrike to replace Jira and streamline their campaign process. Dynamic timelines saved them 200+ hours a year in launch prep, while review and proofing tools cut 400 meetings annually.

With Wrike, you can:

• Track your Agile Scrum goals, manage processes, and turn meeting items into actionable tasks
• Access a clear, real-time view of ongoing tasks, priorities, and progress using custom dashboards
• Visualize tasks as cards on a Scrum board to see what’s done, what’s in progress, and what’s next
• Monitor how much effort goes into each task and generate insights that guide better planning
• Communicate directly on tasks, share files, and receive updates in one place
• Set up standard Scrum workflows and templates to ensure consistency, from sprint backlog refinement to sprint planning
• Use automation to streamline recurring tasks and integrate with other tools your team relies on
• Lean on Wrike’s integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams to enable  developers, marketers, or consultants to post quick async updates directly into shared boards

Need a transparent, efficient, and adaptable daily standup process for your next Scrum event? Start your free Wrike trial today.