September 21, 2026
Hi Everyone,
In a study of 102 daily standups, teams had their best meetings when the usual leader was absent. People finally talked to each other instead of reporting up.
Today, we're covering how to build that into every standup without adding more time to the meeting.
Blockers first, yesterday’s recap last
Flip the agenda. Start with what's blocking you, then move on to what you're doing today. Make yesterday's update optional.
The same study shows why. Teams spent most of their time recapping yesterday’s work, but rated this the least useful update. Blockers — the one update that gets problems solved — got the least time.
Then change how the conversation works. Whoever runs the meeting stays quiet, and the team asks each other questions directly. Rotate the host if that makes it easier.
After each person speaks, have the leader ask the group, "Does anyone need to follow up on that?"
And don’t worry about losing track of finished work when you drop the recap. Your board or tracker already shows who completed what, and anyone who wants the detail can look it up there.
If you don’t yet have one, set up a free board in Notion, Trello, or Asana. Then drop the recap.
When the standup works better in writing
If the work is mostly independent or the team is spread across time zones, move the standup to writing. Everyone posts their blockers and today's plan in a dedicated channel by a set time, and teammates reply in threads. Keep one live session a week for anything that needs a real discussion.
Basecamp has worked this way for years. Around 70 people, no daily standup, just one written question each afternoon asking what everyone worked on. The answers become the record, so there’s no need to recap them live.
Keep the meeting live when people depend on each other's work every day. That back-and-forth is faster out loud than in threads.
Is your standup reporting up or across?
At your next standup, check two things:
- What happens after each update. If teammates ask questions or react, the standup is working. If the leader just moves to the next person, updates are only going up.
- How long yesterday's updates take. If they eat up most of the 15 minutes, start with blockers instead.
And if you canceled the standup for two weeks, what would break? If you can't think of anything, try it. You’ll soon hear from the team if something's missing.
Go deeper
👉 Stray, Moe & Sjøberg: Daily Stand-Up Meetings: Start Breaking the Rules — read this for the full study behind the two-thirds number, plus three more recommendations we didn't have room for here.
👉 Basecamp: How we communicate — worth a look if you want to see what a company with no daily standup at all does instead.
👉 Zapier: Why we replaced our standups with a robot — see how one team moved its standup fully async and what they had to change to keep it useful.
👉 Fortune: Shopify's meeting cost calculator — read this before your next calendar cleanup, the price tag per meeting is a useful gut check.
Coming up tomorrow
Tomorrow, we’ll cover the four decisions that never leave the CEO's desk, no matter how big the company gets.
P.S. The standup probably isn't the only meeting that needs rethinking. Our issue on meeting rules covers the rest.