[a_ranom_dev]

I know you mean well with your comment, but I secretly suspect that you are actually saying that you like your team and think this is jerk behavior. I have never seen how a standup actually helped team cohesion. Being called to stand in front of the middle manager and say your spiel about how soon you'll be done doesn't help team cohesion, unless you mean by simply submitting to the same crap the others are. Team cohesion is just flat out more complicated than 10 minutes of parrot and nod.

[detaro]

If your standup meeting is "stand in front of the middle manager", you're doing it wrong(tm). As with all things "agile", many places love the labels, don't understand the ideas. In my (limited) experience, standup meeting involving leaders only work if the leader is clearly part of the team (and e.g. the pressure to get things done comes from outside).

Of course, that doesn't help you if you're stuck in an organization doing it badly.

[mattmanser]

It doesn't matter if it's a manager or your peers, you shouldn't have to justify your work every single day.

It's childish and immature and if you for some reason need to do it to be able to communicate, learn how to communicate properly, don't foist your miserable way of working on others.

[detaro]

Why does a standup have to be "justifing your work" (it's not supposed to be), but other communication about status not?

[mattmanser]

The very article linked shows the 3 questions.

"What did you do yesterday".

How is that not a loaded question?

JUSTIFY YOUR EXISTENCE. Every day.

Anyone encouraging standups is just contributing to the poor mental health of programmers.

[AnimalMuppet]

That can become "justify your existence", but it doesn't have to. What you did yesterday can actually be relevant information to your coworkers.

It sounds like either your work culture is somewhat toxic, or else you are rather defensive.

[a_ranom_dev]

Actually, the dev has exactly 0 input on how the standup goes. The middle manager sets the true goals and the dev is either in or out of step. Whether anyone else in the meeting gets anything out of it is strictly a side effect, and not relevant to the manager. I've never been able to make a stand up into what it's supposed to be when the manager makes it about meeting deadline and not hearing about problems, regardless of whether you have any problems. Maybe you have worked in great places where this sort of dynamic doesn't happen, but I've worked exclusively for cold capitalists and it's always been about justifying what you are doing and feeling the pressure to get done faster.

[detaro]

When I tell my team what progress I made yesterday, that's not to justify my existence, it is so they know what has and what hasn't happened. Which is why the among equals, not towards a manager, bit is important.