What's a great alternative to the daily standup?


Hey there, This week, I'm continuing the Q&A series on popular remote work questions, explaining why common advice doesn’t work, and sharing what I recommend instead. Reply to this email if you have a question you'd like me to cover next!


We recently switched to fully remote, and love it! However, the one thing we are struggling with is the right format for our daily standup.
What can we do to make our daily standups great? Any tool, process, you would recommend? Or Is there an alternate of daily standup you have found?

While there are a ton of standup tools out there, I'm of the mindset that you should only jump first to tools if you're looking to make something that is already working more efficient. In your case, standups aren't working, so we need to target the approach.

Daily standups tend not to work for remote teams because they are attempting to do too much. You're trying to fit status updates, blocker resolution, team alignment, and socialization into one 15-minute meeting. Check this out if you're interested in a detailed explanation of why this just doesn't work.

So what's the alternative? Unfortunately, there's no one-size-fits-all solution, so it depends on the team. To start, ask your team what they like and dislike about your current standups. The best people to tell you how to fix it are the ones dealing with it.

When I'm brought in as a Fractional COO for a new remote team, I often find that transitioning to a 'my-week' channel is a flexible and effective solution. At the beginning of the week, team members add their bulleted list of what was accomplished last week and what they plan on doing this week. Here's what that looks like:

This approach allows your team to:

  • Spend less time in meetings
  • Be able to provide updates in their own time
  • Build increased accountability

The trick here is to copy the 'This week' items in the following week and add emojis to indicate whether they were completed or not. This helps everyone level up in personal planning. Usually, people forget what they promised and only realize their actual completion rate once they write it down like this. When people have to call out when they're overloaded/blocked and why, everyone ends up getting better at setting reasonable expectations.

It's also great for accountability because you have documented proof of what's getting done and not. As a manager, I end up being extra grateful for using this method because it acts as an easy reference when I do yearly reviews for team members and whenever I need to share specific details with my own managers on exactly what my team is accomplishing.

I've eliminated a LOT of standups using this method. This transition always has a positive response like this:

After a couple weeks with this simple format, I then gather feedback and update as needed. My biggest tip is to keep it simple in the beginning. When teams do a my-week channel and start packing in extras (like additional content or Slack plugins) before they're needed, it makes it very bloated and unhelpful from the start. You can always add on more later.

I love hearing about alternative methods people use instead of the traditional standup. Experiment and let me know what ends up working for you!

If you're looking for additional help implementing a daily standup alternative, book a coaching call here.

TLDR below 👇 | Read this on the web | Subscribe

TLDR

Daily standups are outdated and ineffective.

Try the my-week approach instead. Have a dedicated channel for posting async updates. At the beginning of the week:

  • Paste your last week's goals
  • Add status emojis
  • List this week's plan

​(Share this on Twitter)

Quote of the Week

Has anyone ever said, 'I wish I could go to more meetings today'?

- Matt Mullenweg

In Other News

Effective daily standups for distributed teams
Want more examples of alternative standups? Check out this post from the Campsite founder detailing their standup alternative.

In Case You Missed It

How to break the ice at a team offsite
Last week, I shared alternatives to the dreaded team icebreakers. Read it here if you missed it.

Work Forward Society Updates

*The links in this section are only available if you’re a Work Forward Society member. Their support makes this work possible. If you're interested, join the waiting list to be notified when the community membership reopens.*

1. Virtual comms lessons coming soon! Currently working on the next course on effective virtual communications. If you want me to address anything specific, DM me on Circle.

3. In case you missed it, I shared a recent podcast episode recommendation. Leave a comment with any episodes you've recently enjoyed!

What did you think of this issue? What do you hope to see in the next one? Hit reply and let me know. I read every response.

I truly appreciate you taking the time to read this. Hope you have a lovely day!

Marissa
​Founder, Remote Work Prep

P.S.

  • Did you enjoy this issue? Share the article with a friend.
  • Struggling with a remote work problem? Book a coaching call.
  • If you liked this, consider supporting this free newsletter by leaving a testimonial.

Remotely Interesting

9-5, Monday-Friday, in-person office work are all relics of the past. Let's revolutionize how you live by changing how you work.

Read more from Remotely Interesting

I have tried just about every productivity app on the market. Most sparkle for a week, then fade from my dock. A handful, though, have earned permanent residency. These are the three tools I've personally paid for and relied on daily for years: TLDR below 👇 | Read this on the web | Subscribe 1. Todoist - The List That Never Lets Me Down It’s been so long since I started using Todoist that I don’t even remember not having it (remember when they were included in my WFH Gift Guide four years...

Hey there, If you're looking for an easy way to catch up on new AI features quickly, this is for you. Today at 9am PT, I’m hosting Cooking with AI (Live!) — a walkthrough of four AI recipes I published in May: ✅ Create Your Own Meeting Prep Bot with Zapier agents✅ Create Instant SOPs from Meeting Recordings with Gemini Gems✅ Receive Landing Page Feedback with Lex✅ Discover your Hogwarts House with ChatGPT o3 No jargon. No fluff. Come see how each one works in practice and get ideas for how to...

If you’ve been rolling your eyes at the way people talk about AI lately, you’re not alone. “Replace your team with a single prompt!” “Use this tool or get left behind!” “Why haven’t you automated everything already?” The problem isn’t AI, it’s the story around it. For people-first teams who care about doing great work and taking care of their people, the current narrative feels misaligned at best and unethical at worst. But AI adoption can be something else entirely. Used with intention, it...