Yes, everyone in there knows that scrum meetings should be short, but somehow those meetings take long, because everyone thinks their questions needs answers and their dependabcies definitely must be resolved.. so, an hour it goes.
The first thing we do after stand ups is have a bunch of quick one-on-one or small group meetings.
Then we got a new scrum master whose desired format was to talk about each item on the Kanban board each day, even the ones that weren't being worked on.
It should take 10m at most. Any issues (blockers, dependencies, etc) should be taken to separate ad-hoc discussions to let the team get back to work.
The standup performs an important social function of making everyone involved in the work of the team. People have to face each other, feel accountable to, and feel supported by the group.
And of course there's no room for synching up: The morning standup is meant to facilitate those synch-up meetings, synch-ups that don't have to involve everyone.
This is a fantastic description. And it goes a long way towards explaining why standup (even if I'm not directly involved) leave me feeling so uncomfortable.