[ChuckMcM]

Interesting conversation, I appreciate it.

While it is always possible to use any activity for social engineering or shaming (feeling like a school kid) I don't really see that as a good description of the stand ups effect. It is a "deadline" that is artificially imposed, on a particular task.

In my experience good developers have a wide variety of things they could be working on at any given time, and those things have different weights and different "fun" factors. Without some sort of time limit it is possible to get lots and lots and lots of stuff done without the rest of the team being able to move forward. So once you've agreed on the tasks that need to get done, having a deadline to finish them helps prioritize and focus the activity.

My experience is that bad management is completely orthogonal to process. Any process can be abused by a poor manager in ways that are detrimental to the team, and a good manager can keep a team motivated and productive even with a bad process.

So I don't think stand ups are about "managing" teams, they are a good tool to focus you on what, of the many choices you have, you should be working on right now. Oddly enough, the more senior you get as a developer, the harder it is to get that level of clarity.