I disagree that the key measure should be value for ICs, or atleast engineering ICs. There are a lot of management and non-engineering IC issues that can be sor

I disagree that the key measure should be value for ICs, or atleast engineering ICs. There are a lot of management and non-engineering IC issues that can be sorted by a quick chat. The alternative to a quick chat at standup tends to be constant Slack/Teams messages and lots of 30min meetings. ICs might not get much direct value from a daily standup but we get a lot of indirect value from moving a big chunk of those interruptions to a set time each day. This can be badly managed, as is the case in your examples. You're right that there shouldn't be more than 8 people and it definitely shouldn't take 45 min. 15 min max and if there's more to quickly discuss the people involved should stop and continue after the meeting. The situation you're talking about with crisis mode sounds like planning rather than standup and if you're Engineering Manager is declaring crisis mode and hijacking standup each day to spend an hour planning then you've got major cultural/organisation problems. In that case standups are just a symptom not the root cause. There's also the social aspect, which other comments have mentioned. I've always found that underrated, though I was recently reading about how some national cultures rate it a lot more than others. For me as a Brit I always feel far more comfortable communicating my colleagues when we get on socially and we understand each others sense of humor and communication styles. Taking that time to banter for a few min each morning is massively important for improving team communication. And during lockdown and WFH it's been even more essential.