I always think the argument that it should be used to resolve "blockers" is weird. As a professional, you need to be able to resolve "blockers" on your own -- y

I always think the argument that it should be used to resolve "blockers" is weird. As a professional, you need to be able to resolve "blockers" on your own -- you have to track down people and work with them, it's not always the PMs job. In all my years of experience if I was dealing with a "blocker", then either everyone involved already knew about it way ahead of the standup, or I didn't think the standup was a good way to resolve it. So really the daily standup is about progress reports. Which is totally fine, but, yeah, async is just as effective.