Here’s a question that taunts many individuals and teams who use Scrum: Is the Product Owner supposed to attend the daily standup?
If you read into the Scrum Guide, it describes the daily standup as a “15-minute event for the Developers on the Scrum Team.” It goes on to say that if the Product Owner and Scrum Master are actively working on items in the backlog, they also participate as Developers.
So, how do you interpret this?
Does this mean that if the Product Owner or Scrum Master aren’t actively working on backlog items, they can’t attend the daily standup? And what does “actively working” mean, anyway?
As usual, interpreting the Scrum Guide is as much about what it doesn’t say as about what it does say. And what it doesn’t say — at least not explicitly — is that the Product Owner and/or Scrum Master are not allowed to participate in the daily standup.
Even from a Scrum framework purist’s point of view, the Scrum Guide doesn’t explicitly forbid the participation of the Product Owner in the daily standup. But it doesn’t require it, either.
The daily standup is for the Developers on the Scrum Team, remember? This typically includes the Scrum Master, too, who’s there to facilitate the adoption and usage of agile and Scrum.
When Should the Product Owner Participate in the Daily Standup?
Now that we’ve gotten the theory out of the way, let’s talk about when it’s a good idea to invite the Product Owner to participate in the daily standup — and when it isn’t.
If the Product Owner is formulating, refining, or editing one or more backlog items necessary for the completion of the Sprint, then they naturally need to participate and stay in sync with the Developers on the Scrum Team.
If the Developers need elaboration or inputs from the Product Owner for backlog items in the sprint backlog, then the Product Owner must attend and participate in the daily standup.
If the Developers state that the Product Owner’s presence is needed to facilitate or unblock progress on the active sprint, then the Product Owner must be present in the daily standup.
In other words, the decision whether to invite the Product Owner to a single daily standup or to all daily standups is solely up to the Developers on the team, with the coaching and facilitation of the Scrum Master.
In Summary
Scrum Team members other than Developers should only attend and participate in the daily standup if it makes sense to the Developers on the team — after all, the daily standup is intended to be an opportunity for Developers to sync up on the work being done, and inspect and adapt the plan for the active sprint.
In the meantime, the Product Owner is encouraged to be available in case the Developers decide they need them.
