Is a mid sprint check-in/catch-up a good idea

Question

Scenario: With scrum teams doing a daily stand-up to inform team of progress (yesterday and today) and any impediments. I wonder sometimes do they actually bring up impediments, concerns or issues. Can we have a mid sprint (Once a sprint) catch-up where we look at tasks on board and each team member tells team:

1. What they did yesterday, Today, Impediments
2. Does this still relate to sprint goal
3. Do they think item will make sprint, Team discussion afterwards (Parking lot): If it wont make the sprint how can we adapt, fix this?

I know this might take more time instead of the normal stand-up timebox (15min)

Idea: I've googled and I can't find a lot of information on a mid sprint catch-up and I know this is not one of scrums ceremonies, but rather I see it as one of the Shu Ha Ri stages.

Ri: Now the student isn't learning from other people, but from his own practice. He creates his own approaches and adapts what he's learned to his own particular circumstances.

The check-in is more how Kanban does a stand-up (Walking the board) approach.

I understand the adding something like this might sound like Poorly-specified requirements, or unclear value propositions or Not writing the acceptance criteria first or A lack of trust but this is an just an idea.

Answer 1

What you're describing as your mid-sprint checkin is exactly what every daily scrum should be. So your idea is good, I would just do it every day instead of once per sprint. Now, you mention this may take longer than 15 minutes. I doesn't have to, but let's say it does because the team isn't practiced at it yet. Is it better for the team to have the right conversation and exceed the timebox or to have an ineffective conversation in the timebox. In most cases (if not all) it's the first.

The thing I'd challenge on the Shu Ha Ri idea is that it is a progression. You can't hit Ri before making it through Shu and Ha, and having effective daily scrums (what you are describing as the mid-sprint checkin) in 15 minutes is definitely a shu-level practice.

Answer 2

I wonder sometimes do they actually bring up impediments, concerns or issues.

This appears to be at the heart of your question.

Perhaps rather than organising another meeting it would be worth discussing this at the next retrospective? If you can resolve it so that the daily scrum is more effective then you may not need an additional meeting.

Answer 3

Is a mid sprint check-in/catch-up a good idea?

For the situation you are describing, no.

I wonder sometimes do they actually bring up impediments, concerns or issues. 

You are worried that people don't bring up impediments or issues at the daily standup. But the meeting you are proposing to have mid sprint has the same purpose as the daily standup meeting. So basically, you are trying to do the same thing, but you are expecting different results. It will not happen.

If you do have some success with such a meeting though, then it's even worse. The Scrum Guide says:

The Development Team uses the Daily Scrum to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and to inspect how progress is trending toward completing the work in the Sprint Backlog. The Daily Scrum optimizes the probability that the Development Team will meet the Sprint Goal.

People might start to ignore the daily meetings and mention their impediments and issues only at this mid sprint meeting. Then basically, you get large delays between when an issue occurrs and when an issue is addressed. If you have two week sprints, you can now respond to issues once every week, which is worse than once every day if you have a proper daily meeting. So, you are less Agile with a mid sprint meeting, even though the meeting might seem to do its job.

It's important to find out why people aren't mentioning their issues at the daily scrum, then fix the cause. And regarding the Shu Ha Ri reference, a mid sprint meeting has nothing to do with Shu Ha Ri, it's just an attempt to fix the symptoms of a problem while ignoring the cause of the problem. Improve the daily scrums, don't invent new meetings thinking you are adapting your Scrum practice.