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Comment by ipaddr | Hacker News Reader

The primary purpose is provide highlights that can be sold as stories for management.

If you are looking for a social event that's what happens at lunch over an hour while sitting not a 5 minute standup where everyone is trying to say just enough so they can get back to work.

It's sad the standups are considered a social event. Back in the good old days you finished your work chilled on a cheap startup couch while two others played ping pong and you chatted. Or you met up a bar after and threw darts. What have we sold ourselves lately?

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> The primary purpose is provide highlights that can be sold as stories for management.

Speak for yourself. My team has a small window of overlapping time zones and it's a valuable opportunity to get everyone together and sync on all our projects. But our work is all loosely interrelated, so that's actually something we need to do.

It's not a "social event" in the sense that you all get to hang out and make friends. It's a social event in the sense that it's an opportunity to verbally engage with your colleagues in a group setting.

I agree that standup makes little sense on a team of people who are all working on unrelated projects. The silliest thing you can do here is assume that what works for you will work for everyone, and what doesn't work for you won't work for anyone.

My company makes a big point in work-life balance. We can meet up in a bar to throw darts at most 2 times per year - anything more and we are impacting family time. Lunch is a good social time, but that is personal time and often better spent meeting with people not on the team (some always go home, some meet with old team members...) Your team should meet during your normal 40 hour work week (or whatever hours you work) for team social time.

Meeting up over lunch doesn't work for remote teams. Nothing worse than eating while on camera. No thank you, I've tried and it's really not great. Especially if you have a hybrid team where some people are in the office eating together in a conference room and some are remote solos, the dynamics get really weird.

One of the biggest benefits to a synchronous standup is you know everyone has showed up and is available to discuss work stuff. With remote teams and flexible schedules, having a hard sync point helps people communicate better, even if it's just "hey, let's stay on the call (or start a new one) for an extra 10 minutes to sort this out" instead of spending hours or days in async communication.

Or just message someone and ask them if they have a few minutes for a call?

Why do you need a extra meeting to have a sync point to ask for a quick chat.

Just fucking talk to your team mates! Is everyone in kindergarten now?

How do you meet up at a bar when your team is 1000 miles away?

Well, yes, exactly.

> Back in the good old days [...] What have we sold ourselves lately?

Fly everyone to one place so they can do this. Twice a year is good - enough that it is a good vacation/team building exercise, not so much that people feel like they are married to their job not their spouse.

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