I was just rapping with my friend George Lacy about project management styles and he made the comment that when a waterfall project plan goes to daily scrum, it's the first sure sign that the project is in trouble. We've all been on those projects. Things are going along OK but there are some palpable "Guy in a Room" problems lurking in the plan, among other issues. Some contributors, especially the really smart ones, aren't communicating well and some technical debt is building up in spite of the project manager's valiant efforts to know what's really going on. Then it happens. The owner of the project can't dodge the defeat that's coming his way any longer. So he institutes an emergency daily scrum meeting. "All hands on deck! We are going to meet every day until this crisis is resolved."

Of course, this is a knee-jerk reaction but it often helps to get troubled waterfall projects to completion. What amazes me about this phenomenon is that if better communication is the obvious answer, why don't those managers just scrum from the beginning of the project. It seems that many waterfall-minded managers believe that scrumming is valuable only as a way to rescue a project that's in trouble. It's not a huge leap to believing that boosting communication and transparency in any way possible will increase the chances of success. So do it from the start. You don't have to be a ScrumMaster to do it well although some training helps. It should fit your organization's goals and needs first and then adhere to best practices if it can. Srinivas Suravarapu built a list of 8 questions you should ask before adopting scrum that I think are helpful in getting started.