Our large team had a problem with long weekly standups. To alleviate the pressure to list tons of details in standups, we designated certain senior team members (I'm one) as owners of certain pieces and gave them their own optional weekly standups. These had agendas people added to throughout the week. This isn't a startup with quick reflexes; we're all busy with many things in parallel and like predictable schedules, or so we thought.

That was even worse. It encouraged people to delay important discussions until the next meeting for that part. The meetings had generic names and sometimes very small agendas, so people started skipping, and then important topics would come up with the wrong set of people present. Guess what, the main meeting was still long too.

We tried async reports too, like the author said. I dunno, it doesn't sound like a bad idea in general, but it didn't work for us. People are too busy to read things they're 75% not involved in.

Eventually I deleted my own standup meeting and told everyone I'd call same-day or next-day meetings only as needed. That worked perfectly. Everyone we needed was in the right place (or video call) at the right time, nobody was just passively there, and there was a clear and important agenda. It more than made up for the short notice. And I do realize writing this that it probably sounds painfully obvious to anyone in a more nimble company.