Daily standups often fail for one simple reason: the questions are built for activity reporting, not progress management. Teams answer them out of habit, managers still lack clarity, and everyone leaves with the same uncertainty—just with more words.

This article gives you a practical system of daily standup questions that reliably produces three outcomes:

1. Clear progress you can trust

2. Blockers and risks surfaced early (before they become emergencies)

3. Realistic plans that align the team without long meetings

You’ll get question sets you can copy, role-based examples, and an async-friendly structure that works for remote teams.

Why daily standup questions matter (more than the standup itself)

Standups are not the “daily meeting.” They’re a daily alignment mechanism.

Good standup questions do two jobs simultaneously:

• They shape thinking. The prompts determine what people notice (progress vs. busyness, risks vs. excuses, outcomes vs. tasks).

• They compress information. Leaders need signal, not narratives. Teammates need dependencies, not detail.

When questions are weak, you get predictable failure modes:

• Updates that sound busy but don’t indicate progress

• “No blockers” that later become major issues

• Plans that are optimistic and disconnected from capacity

• Managers forced into follow-up pings (which feels like micromanagement)

When questions are strong, you get a lightweight operating rhythm: visible work, early warnings, and fewer meetings overall.

Daily standup questions (core set): the 4 prompts that work in most teams

Here’s the core set. It’s intentionally short to keep response time low and quality high.

1. What moved forward since the last update?

• Focus on progress, not time spent.

2. What’s the next most important thing you’ll complete today?

• Force prioritization and realism.

3. What might slow you down (blockers, dependencies, risks)?

• Make uncertainty visible.

4. Where do you need input/decision—and from whom?

• Turn “blocked” into an actionable ask.

If your team can answer these clearly, you already have 80% of what you need.

The key nuance: ask for evidence of progress

A small change that makes a big difference is to define “moved forward” as a tangible artifact:

• Shipped/merged/deployed

• Draft created and shared

• Customer contacted and outcome logged

• Decision made

• Experiment run and results summarized

This reduces vague updates like “working on X” and creates a culture of finishing.

H2: Daily standup questions for different goals (progress, risk, capacity)

Your team’s standup questions should reflect what you’re optimizing.

Below are question variants you can mix in depending on what’s currently fragile: execution, risk, focus, or cross-team coordination.

1) Progress-first questions (for execution and delivery)

Use these when work feels scattered or delivery is slipping.

• What did you finish that someone else can use/verify?

• What is the smallest “done” you will deliver today?

• What did you deprioritize (and why)?

Why they work: they force clarity on definition of done and trade-offs.

2) Risk-first questions (for high-uncertainty projects)

Use these in launches, migrations, compliance work, or anything with unknowns.

• What assumption are you least confident about today?

• What’s the earliest sign this plan is failing?

• What could impact the timeline even if everything else goes well?

Why they work: they normalize “naming the risk” before it becomes blame.

3) Dependency-first questions (for cross-functional coordination)

Use these when teams are waiting on each other (product/engineering/marketing, sales/implementation, support/engineering).

• Who is waiting on you today—and for what?

• What are you waiting on—and what’s your fallback plan if it doesn’t arrive?

• What decision would unblock multiple people at once?

Why they work: they turn coordination into a visible queue instead of silent delays.

4) Capacity-first questions (for overloaded teams)

Use these when people are stretched thin, context-switching, or burning out.

• What are your top 1–2 priorities today (not 5)?

• What will you not do today to protect those priorities?

• What’s the one thing you need to stop or simplify?

Why they work: they prevent “wish list” planning without turning into time tracking.

Standup questions examples by team type (copy/paste)

Different functions produce different artifacts, so the best standup questions are slightly tailored. Below are standup questions examples you can apply immediately.

Engineering / Product delivery

Daily prompts

• Progress: What PR/task moved closest to “done” since yesterday? Link it.

• Plan: What will you get to reviewable/shippable today?

• Risk: Any tech risk or unknown that could cause rework?

• Dependency: Do you need a product decision, review, or environment access? From whom?

Optional precision prompt (use 2–3x/week)

• What’s the next test/verification step to confirm this works?

Marketing

Daily prompts

• Progress: What asset/campaign element advanced (drafted, approved, scheduled, published)?

• Plan: What’s today’s most important output?

• Risk: Any approval/review risk that could delay launch?

• Learning: Any signal from performance data we should act on today?

Optional focus prompt

• What are you pausing to avoid spreading thin?

Sales / Revenue teams

Daily prompts

• Progress: What revenue-moving actions happened (meetings held, proposals sent, follow-ups completed)?

• Plan: What’s the single deal or account you’ll move forward today?

• Risk: Any deal risk (timeline, competitor, stakeholder gap)?

• Ask: Do you need help from leadership/CS/solutions? What exactly?

Optional accuracy prompt

• What changed in forecast confidence since yesterday—and why?

Customer Support / Success

Daily prompts

• Progress: What customer issue was resolved or moved to a clear next step?

• Plan: What’s the highest-impact customer outcome you’ll deliver today?

• Risk: Any at-risk account or recurring issue pattern?

• Ask: Any escalation needed (and what’s the desired outcome)?

Optional quality prompt

• What should we document or automate based on today’s tickets?

Operations / Admin / Finance

Daily prompts

• Progress: What process, approval, or deliverable moved forward?

• Plan: What deadline or compliance item is most critical today?

• Risk: Any vendor/budget/legal risk emerging?

• Ask: Any decision needed from leadership to prevent delays?

Remote standup questions and async standup questions (how to make them work)

In remote environments, the biggest standup killers are:

• People posting long, unstructured paragraphs

• Updates scattered across multiple tools

• No clear expectation for when updates should be posted

• Leaders reading too late, so blockers stay blocked

To fix this, treat the standup like a daily written report with strict structure.

The async format that stays readable

Use a consistent template with short fields:

• Progress (1–3 bullets):

• Today (1–2 bullets):

• Blockers/Risks (0–2 bullets):

• Asks/Dependencies (optional):

Add a rule: each bullet starts with a verb + output.

Examples:

• Progress: “Merged PR for billing retry logic; deployed to staging.”

• Today: “Finalize edge cases; open PR by 3pm.”

• Risk: “Need confirmation on refund policy for partial months.”

• Ask: “@Finance confirm policy by EOD; otherwise I’ll implement default option A.”

Set a posting window (and protect it)

Async standups work when there’s a predictable rhythm:

• Posting window: e.g., 9:00–10:30 local time

• Leaders review: e.g., 10:30–11:00

• Follow-ups: moved into threads or short 1:1 calls as needed

This prevents the “I’ll read it later” problem.

A simple rule for managers

If you want reliable async updates, provide reliable responses:

• Acknowledge decisions quickly

• Clear blockers fast

• Don’t punish people for raising risks

Otherwise, people learn to write “no blockers” to avoid attention.

How to choose the right questions (without turning standup into a survey)

More questions do not create more clarity. They create more fatigue.

Use this selection rule:

• Always: Progress, Today, Blockers/Risks

• Sometimes (pick one): Dependencies or Priority trade-off or Confidence level

• Rarely (use for a week): Assumptions, experiments, or process improvements

A practical weekly rotation

Keep your core prompts stable, and rotate one “focus” prompt by week:

• Week 1: Dependencies (“Who needs what from whom?”)

• Week 2: Focus (“What are you not doing today?”)

• Week 3: Risk (“What’s the earliest sign of failure?”)

• Week 4: Quality (“What did we learn or improve?”)

This avoids monotony while keeping consistency.

Practical examples: what good daily standup answers look like

Below are examples you can use as a quality bar.

Example 1: Engineering (good)

Progress

• Merged caching fix for dashboard load time; staging shows ~35% improvement.

Today

• Add monitoring + rollback plan; deploy to production by 4pm.

Blockers/Risks

• Risk: metrics might spike due to increased sampling—will confirm thresholds with SRE.

Ask/Dependency

• Need SRE review on alert thresholds (15 min) before production deploy.

Why it’s good: specific artifact, measurable result, clear plan, actionable ask.

Example 2: Marketing (good)

Progress

• Finalized landing page copy v2 and sent to design; approval requested.

• Reviewed last week’s campaign: CTR up, conversion flat.

Today

• Draft onboarding email

2 and add A/B subject line test.

Blockers/Risks

• Waiting on design ETA; if not by noon, I’ll use a simplified layout to keep schedule.

Why it’s good: it shows forward motion and a fallback plan.

Example 3: Support (good)

Progress

• Closed 14 tickets; 3 escalations moved to engineering with reproduction steps.

Today

• Reduce backlog for “invoice failed” category; update macro reply with clearer steps.

Blockers/Risks

• Pattern: 5 customers reporting the same invoice error after last release.

Ask/Dependency

• Need engineering confirmation whether this correlates with yesterday’s billing deploy.

Why it’s good: it surfaces a risk pattern early, not just volume.

Example 4: “Looks fine but isn’t” (common weak update)

• Yesterday: worked on onboarding.

• Today: continue onboarding.

• Blockers: none.

What’s missing:

• What changed? What output exists? What is “done”? Any uncertainty? Any ask?

A better rewrite:

• Progress: Drafted onboarding checklist and shared with team for review.

• Today: Incorporate feedback, publish v1 in the knowledge base.

• Risk: Waiting on policy confirmation for step 3; otherwise I’ll mark it “optional” for v

FAQ

How many daily standup questions should we use?

Aim for 3–5 prompts. If you need more, your process likely has unclear priorities or too many parallel projects. Keep the questions short; force clarity in the answers.

Should we ask “What did you do yesterday?”

Only if you define it as “What progress happened since the last update?” Otherwise you’ll get activity logs. Progress language is harder to fake and easier to use.

What if people always say “no blockers,” but issues still appear later?

That’s usually a system issue, not an honesty issue. Add a risk prompt like:

• “What might slow you down even if nothing is ‘blocked’ yet?”

Also ensure raising risks leads to help and decisions—not blame.

How do we keep standups from turning into long discussions?

Make one rule: standup is for surfacing; solving happens after with the smallest relevant group. If a topic needs more than 60 seconds, park it and move it to a thread or a quick follow-up.

Do these questions work for non-technical teams?

Yes—if you anchor answers to artifacts: drafts, approvals, customer outcomes, scheduled campaigns, resolved issues, decisions made. The principle is the same: show progress, plan realistically, surface risk early.

Async or live standup—what’s better?

If your team is distributed or meeting-heavy, async often wins because it creates a written record and reduces interruptions. Live standups can work for tightly coupled work, but only when questions stay structured and follow-ups are handled separately.

Conclusion: treat standup as a daily management system, not a ritual

The best daily standup questions are not clever. They are consistent, output-focused, and designed to reveal reality: what moved, what’s next, and what might go wrong.

If you want this to run with less effort—especially across remote teams—use a tool and workflow that turns daily answers into clean plans, searchable history, and executive-ready summaries.

AIAdvisoryBoard.me is built for that operating rhythm: lightweight daily plans and reports, async standups, and short leader summaries that keep teams aligned without adding meetings. If you’re aiming for more system and less chaos, it’s a natural next step.