An async standup replaces the daily call with written updates that people read when it suits them. The cheapest way to run one is to stop writing updates at all and let the kanban board report for you: where a card sits answers "what are you working on", and a blocked tag answers "what is in your way". Each person spends two minutes keeping their cards honest, and the team reads the board in five.
This guide shows the board setup, the daily routine, and the cases where you should keep a live call anyway.
What is an async standup?
An async standup is a status check that happens in writing, not in a meeting. Instead of everyone joining at 9:30, each person posts their update when they start work, and teammates read them later. The Scrum Guide describes the Daily Scrum as a 15-minute event, and the async version keeps the purpose (spot problems early) while dropping the shared clock.
Most advice on this topic suggests a chat bot or a form that asks three questions every morning. That works, but it creates a second place where status lives, and the second place is usually stale by lunchtime. A board already holds the same information, so the update can be a by-product of work you were going to do anyway.
Why run an async standup from the board?
The standard three questions are what I did yesterday, what I do today, and what blocks me. A board answers all three without anyone typing a sentence.
| Standup question | What the board shows |
|---|---|
| What did you finish? | Cards that moved to the last column since yesterday |
| What are you doing today? | Cards in the "Doing" column with your name on them |
| What is blocking you? | Cards carrying the blocked tag, with a comment saying why |
Written updates drift away from reality because nobody edits an old message. A card is different: if it sits in "Doing" for six days, that is visible to everyone without a word being said. The board is the one status report that cannot go out of date quietly.
How do you set up the board?
Keep it small. Four columns are enough for most teams: Backlog, Doing, Review, Done. If you want a longer walkthrough of column choices, kanban board examples covers several layouts.
Then add three small rules:
- One tag means "blocked". Pick a colour, name it, and use it for nothing else.
- Every card in Doing has an owner. A card nobody owns is a card nobody updates.
- Set a WIP limit on Doing, roughly one card per person plus one. In EasyKanban the limit is advisory: the column header changes colour when you go over, and nothing is blocked.
The blocked tag is the part that replaces the third standup question, so give it a rule of its own: whoever adds the tag also adds a comment with what they need and from whom. A bare red card tells the team nothing. A red card that says "waiting on the API key from Maria" can be fixed before noon.
What does the daily routine look like?
The routine has two halves, one for the writer and one for the reader. Neither takes long.
At the start of your day, you spend two minutes on your own cards. Move what changed, tag what is stuck, and leave a one-line comment on anything the team will wonder about. Do this before you open your inbox, because later it turns into something you do "when I get a minute".
The scan comes next. Someone on the team (rotate it weekly) opens the board and reads it left to right in about five minutes, looking for four things: cards in Review that nobody has picked up, anything with the blocked tag, a card that has not moved in three days, and a Doing column over its limit. Each finding gets a comment or a direct message to the person involved. Everything else is fine and needs no discussion.
That scan is the whole standup. A team of six reads six people's work in the time a live call takes to get past hello.
Does async standup actually work?
It works for some teams and not for others, and the evidence is mixed. A LogRocket write-up of a six-week experiment with a seven-person product team reported a 10% productivity gain at first. Over time the written updates turned into noise that people stopped reading, problems took longer to resolve, and the team ended up with a hybrid of two live standups a week.
Two things in that story are worth taking seriously. Written status updates decay because they are extra work with no payoff, which is the argument for letting the board carry the status. And some problems are faster to solve by talking, which is the argument for keeping a short call. Treat the board scan as the default and the call as the exception.
When should you keep a live standup?
Keep a call, at least once or twice a week, in these cases:
- The team is new and people do not yet know how each other work.
- Work is tightly coupled, so one person's blocker changes what three others do the same day.
- It is an incident or release week and decisions need to happen in minutes.
A good middle path is the one from the experiment above: a 10-minute call on Monday and Thursday, with the board scan covering the other days. If you already use sprints, kanban vs scrum explains which of your meetings a continuous board makes unnecessary, and which it does not.
Can a small team do this for free?
Yes. A board with a few columns, tags and comments is all the method needs. EasyKanban's free plan allows three boards, unlimited cards and up to three team members per board, which covers a small team running its standup from a single shared board. The teams page shows how sharing and comments work when more than one person is on a board.
If your team lives in chat, you can also connect an AI assistant to the board and ask it for a summary of what moved yesterday and what is blocked. Connect Claude to your kanban board walks through the setup. The board stays the source of truth, and the assistant only reads it.
FAQ
What is an async standup?
An async standup is a daily status update shared in writing instead of in a live meeting. Team members post what they did, what they will do and what blocks them whenever it suits their schedule, and the rest of the team reads those updates later. It suits distributed teams in different time zones.
How do you run a standup with a kanban board?
Keep four columns, give every card in Doing an owner, and use one tag for blocked work with a comment explaining why. Each morning people update their own cards in two minutes, and one person scans the board for stuck or unclaimed cards. The scan takes about five minutes.
Do async standups replace daily meetings completely?
Not always. They work well for stable teams with loosely coupled work. New teams, release weeks and tightly linked tasks often need a live call, so many teams keep one or two short calls a week and let the board cover the rest. Start with the board and add calls only where problems appear.
How do you stop people from ignoring async updates?
Put the status where people already work and make reading it a rotating job. A board that people must update to do their own work stays current, while a separate message thread gets ignored within weeks. Review the board scan findings weekly and drop anything nobody acts on.