Key Takeaways
- Traditional standups often conflate three different needs: status sharing (can be async), blocker identification (needs quick response), and team connection (needs synchronous time)
- Moving status updates to async frees synchronous time for what actually requires it
- Async standups work when they're structured, consistent, and actually read
- Some synchronous time still matters—but it should be used for discussion, not information broadcast
The daily standup: fifteen minutes where everyone shares what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, and what's blocking them.
In theory, it's a quick alignment ritual. A way to keep everyone informed. A chance to surface blockers early.
In practice, it's often fifteen minutes of people waiting for their turn to talk, half-listening to updates that don't affect their work, checking their phones under the table.
What if the status update part didn't need a meeting at all?
What Standups Are Trying to Do
The standup format mashes together several different purposes:
Status visibility: Everyone knows what everyone else is working on. This creates awareness and helps people coordinate. Having a single source of truth makes this even more effective.
Blocker identification: When someone is stuck, the team learns about it and can help.
Accountability: Publicly stating what you'll do creates a mild pressure to actually do it.
Team connection: Regular face time keeps the team feeling like a team. This is especially important when you need to keep remote teams aligned.
The question is whether all of these require a synchronous meeting. The answer is usually no.
What Can Go Async
Status updates are information broadcast. "Here's what I'm working on." This doesn't require real-time interaction. Someone can read it whenever it's convenient for them—and probably absorb it better than they would in a rapid-fire verbal round-robin.
A simple format works: each person posts a brief update at the start of their day (or end of the previous day). What did you complete? What are you working on? What's blocking you? Same information as the verbal standup, delivered asynchronously.
This takes each person two to three minutes to write. It takes each person two to three minutes to read. But those minutes happen when it's convenient, not when the calendar demands everyone be present.
What Probably Needs Synchronous Time
Blockers need quick responses. If someone is stuck, waiting 24 hours for the next standup is too slow. Async updates can surface blockers, but the response often needs to be faster.
Build a culture where blockers flagged in async updates get addressed promptly. Or keep a brief synchronous check-in specifically for blockers—five minutes to ask "anyone stuck on anything?" rather than fifteen minutes of full status updates.
Team connection is harder to manufacture asynchronously. There's value in seeing faces, hearing voices, experiencing the team as a group. Purely async teams can feel fragmented.
Consider keeping some synchronous time, but using it differently. Instead of status updates, use it for discussion. Talk about an interesting problem someone's facing. Celebrate a win together. Have an actual conversation rather than a round-robin of prepared statements.
Making Async Updates Work
Async standups fail when they become another thing people ignore. A few practices help:
Consistency: Same format, same time, same place. Everyone posts to the same channel at approximately the same time. Predictability makes it easier to maintain the habit.
Brevity: Three bullet points, not three paragraphs. If updates are long, people won't read them. If they're quick to write and quick to read, compliance stays high.
Accountability: Someone needs to notice when updates don't happen. This might be the manager. It might be automated. But if skipping the update has no consequence, updates will fade.
Actual reading: If nobody reads the updates, why write them? Reference updates in conversation. Follow up on blockers mentioned. Demonstrate that the updates matter.
The Hybrid Approach
Many teams land on a hybrid. Async daily updates for status. A shorter weekly synchronous meeting for discussion, planning, and connection.
The daily async replaces the information-sharing function. The weekly sync provides the human connection and deeper discussion that async doesn't handle well. This is also a good time to run better one-on-ones with individual team members.
This gives you the best of both: continuous visibility without daily meeting overhead, plus regular face time without pretending that status updates require it.
Addressing Objections
"People won't read async updates." True if there's no structure and no accountability. False if you build the habit deliberately. Start by making updates genuinely useful and visibly valued.
"We'll lose the accountability of public commitment." Written commitments can be just as accountable as verbal ones—arguably more so, since they're documented. This avoids the problem of relying on one person for information. The visibility is the same; only the format changes.
"Some people need the structure." Fair. The daily meeting forces a rhythm. If your team benefits from that forcing function, keep some synchronous element. But make it shorter and more focused.
Ask yourself: How much of your standup time is spent sharing information that could be read? How much is spent on discussion that requires real-time interaction? Let that ratio guide how much you shift async.
Start With an Experiment
Don't overhaul everything at once. Try async updates for two weeks. Reduce your synchronous standup to twice a week, or shorten it to five minutes for blockers only. See what you lose and what you gain.
You may find that the meeting time was mostly wasted. You may find that your team needs more synchronous connection than you expected. Either way, you'll learn something about what actually serves your team's needs.
JoySuite helps teams stay aligned without endless meetings. Centralized access to updates and documentation so everyone can stay informed asynchronously. Structured workflows that capture what matters without requiring a meeting to share it. Combined with instant upskilling, your team can learn and collaborate more effectively.
