A question has been stuck in my head lately:
What information did we just exchange that wasn’t already available?
That question is why I keep coming back to whether most daily standups are still earning their keep.
Standups made a lot of sense when visibility was scarce. Today, many teams already have issue trackers, PR activity, build status, incident feeds, and delivery dashboards. The information exists. We still gather every morning to narrate it out loud.
That doesn’t mean standups are useless. It means we should be more honest about what they are providing:
- New information
- Accountability theater
- Team cohesion
- Early risk detection
- Or just habit
For many teams, it’s probably a mix. But if the “status update” part can be handled asynchronously, we should stop pretending ceremony is the only way to create visibility.
I’ve been tinkering with a small internal tool to surface delivery signals asynchronously. The point is not to kill communication. The point is to test whether better visibility can reduce low-value ceremony and leave more room for work that actually needs conversation.
Process should earn its keep. If a ritual doesn’t improve decisions, speed, or trust, it’s overhead.