30 async standup questions, grouped by team
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Most async standups start with the same three questions: what did you do yesterday, what will you do today, is anything in your way. They work for a month. Then the answers turn into "same as yesterday", and the standup becomes a form people fill in to make a reminder go away.
The fix is usually not a new tool. It is better questions, picked for the team that answers them. Below are thirty, in four sets: engineering teams, remote and async teams, managers and leads, and cross-functional groups. Pick three or four from a set, not all of them. A standup that takes longer than two minutes to answer stops getting answered.
How to use these
- Keep it to three or four questions. Every extra question costs every person, every day.
- Always keep a blocker question. It is the one answer someone else can act on.
- Swap one question every few weeks. A new question gets a real answer; an old one gets a habit.
- Make one question optional. An optional "anything else?" catches the things no question asked for.
Engineering teams
Engineers need the standup to surface blocked work and review queues, not to narrate every ticket. These questions keep answers short and push the useful part, what is stuck and who can unstick it, to the top.
- What did you finish since your last update?
- What are you working on today?
- Is anything blocking you, and who could unblock it?
- Which pull request is waiting on a review from someone?
- Did anything break, or nearly break, in production?
- Is there a decision you need from someone else to keep moving?
- What will you ship this week that you did not plan to?
- Is any estimate you gave now wrong? By how much?
Remote and async teams
When people answer hours apart, the standup is the one place everyone can see the whole team. These questions add the context a hallway would have given: when you are around, what you need, and how you are doing.
- What is your focus for today?
- When are you around today, in your own time zone?
- What do you need from someone in another time zone before they log off?
- What did you learn yesterday that someone else should know?
- Is there anything you are waiting on that has gone quiet?
- How is your energy this week, on a scale of 1 to 5?
- Is there a thread or document everyone should read today?
Managers and team leads
A lead's standup is less about their own tasks and more about the team's. These questions point at priorities, people and risks, and work well for a leads-only standup that runs once or twice a week.
- What is the one priority for your team this week?
- Which risk to this week's plan worries you most?
- Who on your team is overloaded, and who has room?
- What decision are you waiting on from leadership?
- What went well that should be recognised?
- Is there a hire, a departure or a leave coming up that changes the plan?
- What would you like the other leads to know?
- Is any commitment to another team at risk?
Cross-functional teams
Product, design, engineering, marketing and support rarely need each other's task lists. They need the handoffs: what is ready, what is waiting, and what changed that the others have not heard about yet.
- What are you handing off to someone today, and to whom?
- What are you waiting on from another function?
- What changed in your area that affects someone else?
- Is there a customer issue the rest of the team should hear about?
- Is anything about to launch, and is everyone who needs to know aware?
- Where do you need a second opinion from outside your function?
- What is the next date that matters, and is it still realistic?
Putting them in Slack
In Morgenruf standups, each standup has its own questions, channel, schedule and participants, so an engineering standup and a leads standup can run side by side with different sets. Each person gets the questions by DM at their own local hour, and one summary lands in the channel with blockers pulled out. It is free at any team size on the hosted instance, or you can run it yourself.
If you are still weighing the async format itself, the 12.5 hour standup works through what it costs to keep the meeting.