Various Scrum ceremonies are unpopular with developers for different reasons. One reason many developers give for not liking the Daily Scrum is: “We talk to each other anyway.”
Of course, it is true, especially when the team is collocated in one room – as it should be.
Still, it is one of the worst fallacies about team interactions, and it is not uncommon. Many people believe that only because they have said something, every intended listener has heard and understood the information. However, there are many cases where the information is either not heard or not understood.
If a team member is concentrating on other things, is listening to music, has left the room for a moment or is attending another meeting, then whatever communication is taking place in the team room will not reach that team member. So one purpose of the Daily Scrum is to consolidate all the communication that is probably happening anyway and to bring it into one short meeting where everyone gets on the same page. The Daily Scrum concept works directly against the “We talk to each other anyway” assumption.
But how can a Scrum Master convince a team that the Daily Scrum is necessary? I think the best way is to do this by recording events where the Daily Scrum has produced value. Every time when someone goes: “Oh, I didn’t know that” (or a variation thereof), the Scrum Master could point out that the Daily Scrum has once again proven its worth. Alternatively, the Scrum Master can record such occurrences, and the next time the team challenges the Daily Scrum, the Scrum Master provides a list of cases where the Daily Scrum was useful.
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