A software house is not a convenient store. The work can start pretty much at any time. What’s important is that people who perform the tasks together can communicate, meet, and share their thoughts. This flexibility is important because the chronotype is said to be like a human height – you can’t change it without breaking a bone.
What is chronotype?
Chronotype is being a night owl or the morning bird – it’s the preference of the organism to wake up early or stay late. Apparently, in traditionally living tribes it breaks down so that about 25% of the population likes nightlife, 25% morning, and the rest something in between. This would serve the survival of the group because at every moment of the night and day there is someone who watches.
So we have Mark, who gets up at 5 AM and Bill, who falls asleep at 1 AM. Theoretically, they both have flexible working hours and must meet from time to time on a call.
Then scrum master sets up the daily scrum meeting at 9 AM.
Mark is cool, he comes at 7 AM, he will eat breakfast, he will poop, he will browse cat pictures on the Internet and he is ready and fresh for confession from yesterday’s tasks.
Bill, on the other hand, gets up sleepy every business day, because he would like to come at 12 and cannot sleep earlier. Frustration grows, and IQ decreases. He sleeps well only on weekends and holidays. Every morning he’s in a hurry, sleepy at this damn daily and the whole day too. In addition, the team looks at him crookedly. Lazy, late, sleepy, cursed black sheep!
Meanwhile, research suggests that the night owls are more intelligent, not lazy: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201005/why-night-owls-are-more-intelligent-morning -larks
This seemingly unimportant organizational habit – organizing daily at 9 AM – drives the significant part of the team inefficient. How much of it depends on luck, but statistically around a quarter. There’s no reason why daily meetings can’t be scheduled at the end of the day or in the middle of it. It is simply a habit, a ritual that has spread and is mimicked in a reckless way.
To sum up: when organizing a scrum team, it is worth paying attention to the preferences of its members regarding the hours in which the meetings are to take place. This also applies to meetings at around lunchtime, when some people may simply die of hunger because of discussions lasting several hours.
Early daily scrum meetings can reduce the performance of the team as long as any night owls are the members. It is worth remembering.