Somewhere along the way, stand-ups became weird.

What started as a quick daily check-in slowly evolved into a ritualistic mumbling of status updates, delivered in turn, with all the warmth of a damp spreadsheet.

But our best stand-ups? They don’t feel like meetings. They feel like a bunch of people catching up before the pub quiz starts.

There’s still structure — we talk about blockers, priorities, who’s doing what. But there’s also laughter. Questions. The occasional off-topic wander down the alley of “has anyone actually read that Jira ticket?”

And that’s the point.

Stand-ups aren’t about reporting. They’re about connecting. They’re a chance to build trust, surface surprises, and remind everyone they’re part of a team — not a workflow diagram.

So if your stand-ups are feeling stale, try this:

• Let people be human first, developers second.
• Start with “How are you?” before “What are you working on?”
• And if someone’s got a cat on their keyboard, let them introduce it.

It won’t fix everything. But it might just make your mornings feel a little less like work, and a little more like collaboration.