Generally if things can get unblocked as you go, that's better, and so this isn't particularly common. But sometimes you need your manager to go kick down a door for you and it's a handy time to let him know. Sometimes it's more benign and it's just easier to ask the group in person when everyone's together sipping their coffee together than it is to fire off a bunch of Slack messages or a group email or whatever.
And to be clear, when I say "blocked" I'm not talking like "I can't get any work done until X", I'm more talking like "this particular avenue needs X to happen before I can continue it, so I'm shelving it for now and doing something else until we can get it resolved." If you find yourself in the former case, something has already gone horribly wrong that should probably have been resolved days ago.
There are different ways something can be blocked. It's possible something is too complex to wrap your head around and you need an extra set of eyes and brains, or it might be blocked by outside impediments. It doesn't really matter, all obstacles need to be addressed and solved somehow.
Exactly. I've always understood Scrum to be moderately successful at getting usable work out of terrible developers. Companies that use it should be avoided. If your employer introduces it it's time to quit.
This is a very important point that's often forgotten. You shouldn't wait for the appropriate meeting, but address it right away. The next stand up meeting is more of a backstop. It's the time to admit: "I guess I really am stuck here. Can anyone else look at this?"
Smoothly running teams don't need this, but many teams don't run that smoothly, and then it's better to address it at the stand up than not at all.
From what I understand, that's the end goal, with daily standup being a way to break the ice and get people who like to silo themselves off to actually ask instead of making no progress.
