[PeterFBell]

Especially for remote first teams, standups are as much a social connection as an accountability, information sharing and blocker highlighting opportunity. I'm a huge fan of synchronous standups and really like zoom to get the added connection of video and audio with "async standup checkins" being the exception case if someone is at the doctors or whatever. All of this assumes a team with at least some timezone overlap.

Slack is great, but it doesn't completely replace the ability to see and talk to people once in a while!

[jaggederest]

Why conflate standup with a social checkin? Why not have a pre-lunch time to hang out and shoot the shit, instead of cramming it in as an ad hoc part of "the process" of standup?

Put your details, questions, concerns, etc in text, where anyone can read it any time they like, and make "social hour" something related to being a better teammate on an interpersonal level, instead of a mandatory part of the process.