> It's usually possible for the person running a small project to ask everyone for status

Perhaps, for efficiency, they could ask everyone simultaneously in parallel, or at least roughly around the same time?

To maximize creativity and opportunity, perhaps we could then figure out some way to share each person's status update with every other person on the team?

Are you intentionally describing having a Slack chat for a project and asking for status updates there?

You still don't need a meeting for that if everyone actually does it.