One of the Agile Principles states “Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project”. The stakeholders can join the daily scrum meeting but they can be mute spectators till the time scrum is not complete. The Scrum Master should encourage the stakeholders to join the meeting by making them understand that it will be worth their time.
The goal of the Daily Scrum is to know whether or not they will reach the Sprint Goal. If the stakeholders are joining the daily scrum, then they will get to know the updated picture of product development and can accordingly adjust their expectations. They get to know about the real issues that the team is facing, which helps both the parties. This event gives the opportunity to the development team to directly ask questions with the stakeholders. It not only promotes a platform for discussion but also provides early detection of risk for the stakeholders. But the Scrum Master should make sure that the inclusion of the stakeholders in the daily scrum is not converting the meeting into a status update. Although stakeholder presence is not mandatory, it doesn’t matter if they are there as a listener because it can facilitate the resolution of any impediments.
