January 25, 2025

How to Run Better Async Standups

Imagine this.

It's 10:47 PM, and you are still at your desk, not because of a looming deadline, but because you’re rewriting your standup update for the third time. You’ve deleted "investigated the API issue" for being too vague, replaced it with a detailed technical breakdown, then worried it was too verbose. Now you’re somewhere in between, carefully crafting what should be a simple status update into a performance piece.

If you can relate to this, this isn't just your problem alone. This is the hidden tax of modern async standups - the invisible hours teams spend not on doing the work, but on proving they're doing it.

The irony is stark: Async standups were meant to save time and reduce meeting fatigue. Instead, they've morphed into a daily exercise in personal marketing. If you have an engineering squad of eight people and a daily standup lasting 15 minutes, that's 75 minutes a week per person—or about 500 hours per year for the team. At an average salary of $75,000 per engineer, you're spending $18,000 annually on that standup. Double the time to 30 minutes, and the cost jumps to $36,000. Scale that across ten squads, and you're looking at $360,000 a year.

But the real cost goes beyond time. There's a psychological toll that comes from this constant pressure to appear productive:

  • The cognitive load of maintaining a running commentary of your work
  • The anxiety of comparing your update to your colleagues' seemingly more impressive ones
  • The guilt when a day of deep thinking doesn't translate into bullet-pointed accomplishments
  • The stress of timing your update "just right" to show appropriate work hours

We've created a system where the appearance of productivity often trumps productivity itself. Where a well-written update about fixing a bug gets more recognition than the quiet hours spent preventing one. Where team members feel compelled to pepper their updates with technical jargon not for clarity, but for impact.

The most perverse outcome? The best performers often struggle the most with this system. Those who spend their days deeply focused on complex problems find themselves with the "least impressive" updates. Meanwhile, those who master the art of update-writing might be masking reduced actual output behind well-crafted prose.

This isn't just inefficient - it's unsustainable. And it's time we acknowledged that our async standups, in their current form, might be part of the problem rather than the solution.

Signs Your Async Standups Are Becoming a Productivity Performance

You've probably heard of digital presenteeism. The challenge with digital presenteeism is that it often masquerades as dedication. Unlike its physical counterpart – showing up to the office while sick – its virtual manifestation is subtler and, in some cultures, even celebrated. Here are the tell-tale signs your async standups might be perpetuating this problem:

1. Long Updates: Watch for team members who consistently write exhaustive updates that read more like activity logs than progress reports. These aren't just thorough communicators – they're often team members who feel compelled to justify every hour of their workday. A healthy update focuses on meaningful progress and blockers. When people regularly spend more time writing about their work than doing it, that's a red flag.

2. The Timestamp Game: Notice team members posting updates at 11 PM, only to mention they'll "continue working on this tomorrow"? Or updates carefully timestamped to show early morning starts? This isn't dedication – it's simply performative. When people feel compelled to prove they're working long hours through their standup timing, your process needs attention.

3. Unnecessary Apology: "Sorry for the small update today" or "Not much visible progress to report" are phrases that should rarely appear in healthy standup culture. When team members apologize for days spent thinking, planning, or dealing with complex problems that don't translate into bullet points, they're responding to unspoken pressure to perform.

4. Excessive Jargon: Watch for unnecessarily technical language in simple progress updates. While technical detail has its place, excessive jargon often signals someone trying to make their work sound more complex or important than necessary. A senior engineer confident in their value can write "Fixed the bug" without needing to detail every diagnostic step.

A New Way to Think About Your Standups

1. The Real Purpose of Standups: The original standup meeting had three simple questions:

  • What did you do yesterday?
  • What will you do today?
  • Are there any blockers?

The questions serve one purpose: enabling team coordination and surfacing obstacles.

2. The Power of Non-Progress: Here's a radical thought: some of your most productive days might yield the shortest standup updates. Think about it:

  • A developer spending six hours debugging might just report "Found root cause of payment bug"
  • An architect deeply contemplating system design might only share "Evaluating architecture options"
  • A product manager synthesizing user feedback might simply note "Analyzing user research data"

These brief updates aren't signs of low productivity – they're often indicators of deep, focused work. When we create a culture that understands and values this, we free our teams from the pressure to perform in their updates.

3. Quality Over Quantity: The best async updates often follow a simple pattern:

  • Clear statement of meaningful progress
  • Honest flagging of blockers
  • Specific requests for help when needed

Notice what makes these updates valuable: how clear and actionable they are, not their length.

Practical Ways to Restructure Your Standup

Now comes the crucial part: transforming these insights into actionable changes. The goal isn't to simply modify your standup format – it's to redesign the entire experience to discourage digital presenteeism while enhancing genuine communication.

Alternative Standup Questions for Better Updates

Replace traditional standup questions with prompts that encourage focused, meaningful updates:

Instead of "What did you do yesterday?"

  • "What meaningful progress happened?"
  • "What's the one thing the team should know about?"

Instead of "What will you do today?"

  • "What's your main focus?"
  • "Where do you plan to make impact?"

Instead of "Any blockers?"

  • "What could help you move faster?"
  • "Where could the team add value?"

These subtle shifts in language discourage task-listing and encourage outcome-focused communication.

Download the template here

Leadership's Critical Role in Transforming Async Standup

All the changes in the world won't matter if leadership doesn't actively shape the culture. Leaders cast long shadows, and nowhere is this more evident than in async communication patterns.

Model the right behaviour

The most effective way leaders can combat digital presenteeism is through their own behavior:

  • Write concise, focused updates that prioritize clarity over comprehensiveness
  • Avoid sending work-related messages during off-hours
  • Share updates about thinking time and exploration without apologizing
  • Openly discuss when you're stuck or need help
  • Celebrate learning and iteration over constant visible progress

Have the appropriate response pattern

Leaders shape culture not just through their updates, but through their responses:

When someone writes a lengthy update:

  • Don't reward the length with extra attention
  • Focus responses on the core progress or blockers
  • Privately discuss whether they feel pressure to over-report

When someone apologizes for a "light" update:

  • Actively affirm the value of focused, deep work
  • Highlight how their thoughtful approach benefits the team
  • Reinforce that quality of impact trumps quantity of activities

Conclusion

The shift towards better async standups isn't just about changing tools or templates – it's about fundamentally rethinking how we demonstrate and recognize value in a remote-first workplaces.

The most successful teams aren't those with the most detailed standups. They're the ones who have created environments where progress is measured meaningfully, communication is not self-serving but serves the team and every team member feels confident in their contribution

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