Managers need to justify their jobs. Reading off a slack report every day seems too simple and not worthy the salary they're paid. Compare that to a large meeting and live status updates, everyone stands, etc. Now that is some "serious work" happening.

Think of it from the point of view that managers have mangers they report to. When shit goes wrong they have to cover their asses. "So it's late. But did you check on their progress? Wait just over slack, no actual meetings? Ok, that obviously needs improvement".

It's not like it's a requirement that "managers" be at a standup meeting. Some of the best teams I've worked on have done daily standups without managers, and I dare to say most of us enjoyed them and found them productive!

Managers are often looking for ways to fill their calendar. Meetings, calls that could be a two-minute Slack exchange, et c. Some will hop into meetings like that if they can. They love the recurring ones, especially, bonus if they can apologize any time they have to skip it for something that actually, maybe, matters ("uh, yeah, we don't care if you come, OK, thanks for apologizing I guess?")

I have never been in a team where managers were present at the standup meeting. In fact, sometimes I have no idea who my "manager" even is. We've got a team, we've got stakeholders, we do the work. If a manager wants to join, that's fine, but he's not in charge of that meeting.

All this talk of standup meetings being primarily for managers is really weird. It's not for managers, and they have no reason to be present. It's for the team, to improve cooperation within the team. If the team has a better way to accomplish that, then they should use that.

Why are your managers attending stand up? The Daily Scrum is the team's meeting. I swear Scrum is only fragile because no one reads the bloody book, or if they do they skim it or ignore it.

From the scrum guide... "The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute time-boxed event for the Development Team."

It is the team's event, if there are other people there it should be at their request. The guide goes on to say that.. "If others are present, the Scrum Master ensures that they do not disrupt the meeting."

If something is self-organized, there is no need for all this ceremony and bullshit that comes with capital-A Agile or Scrum. You just shoot the shit and talk about what you're doing.

Stand-ups and all the process attendant appears to be universally imposed from on high as a micromanagement technique, or because they were sold the idea as some kind of silver bullet by a talk or a snake-oil consultant.

I agree. Scrum is training wheels. If your team is mature and knows when to talk to each other then awesome, let the team do what works for them.

I feel like Scrum is for teams that suffer Stockholm syndrome from poor management and need to be taught how to human beings again.

I think Scrum provides a good baseline of working for new teams, but ultimately the team is free to shape it however it works best for them.

The main value of Scrum as an official process, is that it gives you a stick with which to chase toxic management out of the room. They're not sufficiently Scrum if they crash your meetings and demand to be in charge. Though in my experience, most companies that do Scrum have a management that keeps their distance unless invited.

We do it in person on MWF and slack TTh. I find slack updates to be both more effective and more efficient. It is obviously why it is more efficient; but it’s actually more effective because unfortunately I am one of those many people who simply drift off when in a meeting, and putting updates down in writing helps infinitely.

My current place does it on slack and has a standup. Oh, and everything is also logged in jira tickets. Makes little sense, in my opinion.

Many places do it over Slack.