The daily standup is a waste of time.

[Evan Fishman - Quely for Jira]

From an engineer's perspective, this is dead on. But not for the reason you think.

Go to the comments on any post about this and you'll see the same argument playing out.

One side: "You're just running it wrong."
The other: "The standup itself is the problem."

But here's the uncomfortable truth nobody wants to say:

The standup isn't broken. We turned it into something it was never designed to be.

Most standups have quietly become status reports.

Someone goes around the room. Yesterday. Today. Blockers. The manager nods.

That's a check-in wearing the wrong label.

The original point was to surface blockers. Create alignment. Help the team unblock itself, not report upward.

When that shifts:
→ People stop actually listening to each other
→ Blockers get mentioned but never resolved
→ The ceremony ends and everyone works in isolation anyway

The ceremony stays. The value leaves.

So before we cancel the standup entirely, I'd ask a different question:
Who is the standup actually for?

[Cornelia Jeppsson]

Word! The development team is who the standup is for. So they can ask themselves the question - what do we need to do the coming 24 hours in order to reach our goal? And what risks do we see that might block us from doing so?

[Evan Fishman - Quely for Jira]

Exactly!