The daily standup is a cornerstone of Agile. Fifteen minutes. Same time every day. Everyone shares what they did, what they're doing, and what's blocking them.
It works great when everyone's in the same building.
But what about when your team is spread across six time zones? When some people start work as others are going to bed?
Do you really need daily standups? Or is it time to admit that synchronous rituals don't work for asynchronous teams?
The Synchronous Problem
Here's what happens when async teams try to do daily standups:
Someone's always sacrificing. If the standup is at 9am Pacific, it's 5pm in London and midnight in Asia. Someone's working early or late just to attend.
It fragments the day. When you have a meeting in the middle of your workday, it splits your focus time. For async teams, this is especially painful because deep work is your main advantage.
It's often useless. Half the team wasn't working since the last standup (because time zones), so they have nothing new to share.
The updates become performative. You're not actually coordinating. You're just checking a box.
The Async Alternative
Most async teams solve this with written standups:
Everyone posts an update when they start their day:
- What I did yesterday
- What I'm working on today
- Any blockers
This happens in Slack or a dedicated tool. You read other people's updates async. You respond if needed.
No meeting. No timezone sacrifice. Everyone shares on their own schedule.
It takes 2 minutes to write, 5 minutes to read. No context switching.
What You Actually Lose
But let's be honest about what you give up:
Spontaneous discussion: In a live standup, someone mentions a problem and another person jumps in with a solution. That's harder async.
Team bonding: Seeing faces and hearing voices builds connection. Text doesn't.
Urgency: When someone's blocked, a live standup surfaces it immediately. Async updates might get missed.
These aren't trivial. There's real value in synchronous communication.
The Hybrid Approach
Some async teams compromise:
Async standups most days. Written updates in Slack.
Sync standup once a week. A real meeting where everyone joins, shares, connects. This handles the bonding and spontaneous problem solving.
Ad hoc syncs when needed. If something's urgent or complex, jump on a call. Don't wait for the next standup.
This respects async work while preserving the benefits of sync communication.
When Sync Still Wins
There are scenarios where daily sync standups make sense, even for distributed teams:
Short term sprints: If you're in crunch mode for a product launch, daily sync helps maintain urgency.
Junior teams: Less experienced teams benefit from frequent facetime and coaching.
High dependencies: If work is tightly coupled and coordination is constant, sync standups reduce friction.
Small time zone spread: If the team spans 3 hours, not 12, finding a shared time is feasible.
The Better Question
Instead of "do we need daily standups," ask: "What are we trying to achieve?"
If the goal is:
- Status visibility → Async updates work fine
- Unblock people quickly → Async plus ad hoc calls
- Team cohesion → Weekly sync meetings
- Coordination on complex work → More pairing and collaboration, less status updates
Match the communication method to the goal, not the other way around.
The Freedom of Async
Here's what async teams gain by ditching daily standups:
Focus time: No meeting interruptions. You can work in deep 4 hour blocks.
Flexibility: Start early or late based on your preference and life demands.
Thoughtful communication: Written updates are more concise and clear than verbal riffs.
Documentation by default: Everything's written down, so nothing gets lost.
No timezone tyranny: Nobody's forced to work weird hours just to attend meetings.
For many teams, these benefits far outweigh what's lost by going async.
The Real Test
Try it for a sprint. Replace your daily standup with async written updates.
What breaks? If people get blocked and it takes longer to resolve, that's a signal. If team cohesion drops, that's a signal.
What improves? If people feel more focused and less interrupted, that's a signal. If communication gets clearer, that's a signal.
Most async teams find they don't miss daily standups at all. In fact, they wonder why they ever did them.
The Bottom Line
Daily standups are a tool, not a law. They work for some teams. They don't for others.
Async teams, especially distributed ones, often function better without them.
Replace the sync standup with async updates. Add weekly syncs for bonding and problem solving. Use ad hoc calls when urgent coordination is needed.
You'll get better focus, more flexibility, and less meeting fatigue. And you'll probably ship just as much, if not more.
Because the best standup is the one that doesn't break your flow.