[gliese1337]

    I don't see why narcolepsy should be a problem, especially in our area. I mean sure, meetings and stuff like that might be harder to do, but our industry is/should be lenient to things like office hours.

I blame scrum. Or, more specifically, people who drink the cool-aid and don't understand the actual purpose.

I've interviewed at I-don't-even-remember-how-many companies that claim to offer extremely flexible hours, or don't care about telecommuting, just make sure you deliver... until you tell them that you can't promise to be there for the daily stand-up at 9am. This is typically justified by "it's only one meeting a day!", but if that one meeting is in the middle of the night for you because you work in a different time zone, or you can't make it in till 10 because you've got kids to take care of, etc., etc.... that doesn't really seem so reasonable anymore.

[logfromblammo]

Code up an "instant stand-up" team status web page, such that everyone on the team can see at a glance what everyone else is doing, what they just finished, and whether they have any blocks. Update your status once per day.

Congratulations, you have now saved 10 minutes per day for everyone in the office. Oops, now they have to come up with some other reason for everyone to be physically present at 9 AM sharp.

"Flexible hours" have always been BS at almost every company I have worked for.

[dragonwriter]

> Code up an "instant stand-up" team status web page, such that everyone on the team can see at a glance what everyone else is doing, what they just finished, and whether they have any blocks. Update your status once per day.

Basically, kanban, sure; but you've also missed what is (IMO) the main values provided by the "Daily Scrum", and the reason something like it is useful even in systems that use better methods for communicating status of progress items:

1. Coordination and conflict resolution on next tasks, and 2. Early and rapid identification (and, ideally, resolution or escalation) of barriers/issues.

(That's not to say that there aren't ways other than a daily in-person meeting that could be proposed to meet these goals, just that a status board doesn't replace the functionality of the Daily Scrum.)

[logfromblammo]

I haven't had many positive experiences with daily stand-ups, so I'm heavily biased against them.

For the record, I didn't like doing oral reports in front of the entire class in school, either.