How Enji's Asynchronous Stand-Up Bot Helps Increase Your Team's Productivity

Time is money, and any business aims to use it effectively to engage the skills and abilities of its employees. Part of this is understanding what roadblocks employees encounter and encouraging their professional growth. The challenge is finding ways to understand these issues without spending extra time on meetings and calls.

Asynchronous daily stand-ups offer a unique solution to this issue as a synthesis of traditional stand-up meetings and remote work environments. In this article, we will explore this format of stand-ups to share its benefits for remote teams and then share about Enji’s stand-up feature as well as similar tools.

Originally, a stand-up meeting brought a team together in a single location to report on their progress and other news while standing up. The idea was the inconvenience of standing would keep the sessions short. As more teams moved to remote or hybrid work models, video conferences or calls replaced physical gatherings.

There are a few problems with a synchronous stand-up, especially for remote teams:

• Time differences: Team members could be separated by five or more hours.
• Time away from work: Even if they are short, stand-ups require focusing on the reports instead of completing tasks.
• Record: There is plenty of AI recording software available, but it may be unreliable, depending on the language of communication, and artifacts may not be stored in a single location.

Asynchronous stand-up meetings solve each of these issues because team members complete their check-ins when they start their day, regardless of their time zone. No one needs to wake up early or stay up late. Text-based stand-ups are completed quickly, and team members do not have to wait for colleagues to report on their progress, allowing them to continue their work in minutes. As for artifacts from the stand-up, texts are stored in the messaging tool the team uses and can be downloaded for storage and analysis in other places.

One more issue may not affect all teams but is worth mentioning. Sometimes, team members are not in the mood to vocally express their plans or listen to others. They may feel unwell, be in a bad mood, or get stressed when speaking in front of others. New team members, in particular, may experience apprehension. Asynchronous stand-ups remove the stress and allow for better reflection on the questions.

The Enji team uses our Slack daily stand-up bot to stay focused and remain efficient. Our stand-ups focus on these questions:

• What did I do yesterday?
• What am I going to do today?
• Is there anything blocking your progress?
• What makes you happy today? (Optional)

Stand-ups are completed in the team's Slack channel at the beginning of the working day. This practice allows all stakeholders the chance to review the current state of the progress and see if anything is happening that requires their attention. For example, someone may mention that they are waiting for a colleague to finish a task before they can begin the next step. Text stand-ups make everything transparent and help team members receive timely help and support.

To achieve the benefits of daily asynchronous check-ins, teams need to remember that the introduction of new approaches requires changes in culture. In meetings where everyone is present, either in-person or virtually, there is clear pressure to share your report, while written stand-ups transfer that responsibility to each individual team member. Likewise, employees must understand the purpose of submitting their stand-ups and providing the necessary information.

The role of managers and leaders in this process is essential. Text-based stand-ups make it easy to review everyone's reports quickly and note any challenges or roadblocks. To ensure employees accept and commit to this approach, leaders can:

• Keep the format short
• Submit stand-ups
• Respond to stand-ups
• Take action to resolve issues

These three simple steps will demonstrate that employees' concerns and opinions matter to management and ensure they continue to report issues. Furthermore, it encourages healthy communication within the team.

Programs such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and Slack can be used for asynchronous stand-ups. Several initial benefits of using messengers include visibility to everyone with access and reminders that can be arranged to appear before the stand-up deadline. To reap the full benefits of daily asynchronous stand-ups in messengers, teams should consider using a stand-up bot, which is a bot that automatically facilitates daily stand-up meetings. It asks questions, tracks responses, and generates reports.

The benefits of using a stand-up bot include:

• Engagement: Stand-up bots provide an interactive format for asking and answering questions that help keep team members engaged while submitting their reports.
• Consistency: Stand-up bots generate the same questions and ensure team members adhere to the correct format for response. If someone skips a question, the bot reminds them to answer.
• Visibility: Responses through the bot are available for all team members to view and react to either with emojis or text.
• Reminders: Instead of group reminders, bots can send targeted reminders to those team members who have not submitted their stand-ups yet.
• Integrations: Chatbots can be integrated with other tools to produce summaries and reports.

Enji's mission is to drive performance by providing teams and leaders with objective and accurate data. The information Enji analyzes comes from the daily actions of individuals and teams, such as writing stand-ups. To ensure the data from these reports is easy to understand and does not take time away from important tasks, Enji offers users its stand-up bot.

The Enji stand-up bot:

• Works with asynchronous stand-ups in Slack, Teams, Telegram, and other messengers
• Can be customized to match any format
• Automatically sends reminders about approaching submission deadline
• Interacts with users by responding to answers

After submission, team responses to the stand-ups appear in a common channel where everyone can review their colleagues' progress and challenges. This creates transparency and keeps everyone informed without extra meetings.

Enji's stand-up feature goes beyond daily check-ins, however. As part of the Enji platform, daily reports are accessible by other features, such as Copilot and the AI Summarizer. These tools allow managers and leaders to produce succinct summaries in minutes on project and team health based, in part, on asynchronous stand-ups.

Combined with Enji's broader capabilities, the stand-up bot:

• Reduces friction: The bot sends reminders so managers do not
• Saves time: Fewer meetings means more time for other tasks
• Maintains consistency: The same format for all team members

These steps support Enji's software development principles and aim of supporting responsible engineering.

Today, many stand-up bots exist that fit any team’s size and context. Below, we have summarized the details for the six best stand-up bots teams can use in 2025.

This engineering performance platform drives performance through the support of transparent and disciplined processes. Apart from asynchronous stand-ups, Enji boasts a range of features that exchange data to provide accurate and up-to-date information on project health that guides leaders to promote positive work behavior and responsible software engineering.

Chat integrations: Slack, Telegram, Teams, and more

Format: Asynchronous, text-based

Team size: For mid-size and larger businesses

Best features:

• Customizable stand-up formats
• Automated reminders to submit reports
• Integrations with other features to produce concise reports and summaries

Pricing:

• Contact the Enji team to discuss your needs

A customizable stand-up bot that integrates with popular messaging platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Webex. It offers features like customizable prompts, reminders, and analytics to help teams stay organized and productive.

Chat integrations: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Webex

Format: Asynchronous text-based

Team size:

• Free plan: Limited
• Paid plans available for up to 100 or more than 100 team members

Best features:

• Customizable prompts
• Reminders
• Integrations with other tools
• Analytics and reporting

Pricing:

• Limited free plan available
• $29/month for up to 100 workspace members
• $49/month for greater than 100 workspace members

Standuply is a comprehensive stand-up bot that offers a range of features, including customizable prompts, reminders, and integrations with other tools like Jira and Trello. It also provides analytics and reporting to help teams track their progress and identify areas for improvement.

Chat integrations: Slack, Microsoft Teams

Format: Asynchronous text-based

Team size:

• Free plan: Limited
• Paid plans available based on number of users and features

Best features:

• Text, voice, and video submissions available
• Streamlines access to a team’s internal Q&A
• Customizable prompts
• Reminders
• Retrospectives

Pricing:

• Starter: Free for up to three users.
• Team: Pricing based on number of users
• Business: More features and pricing based on number of users
• Enterprise: Contact Standuply for a quote

Simple Poll is a straightforward stand-up bot that uses polls to gather quick updates from team members. It is easy to set up and use, making it a great choice for teams who prefer a simple and efficient approach to stand-ups.

Chat integrations: Slack

Format: Poll

Team size:

• Free plan: Any size with limited features
• Paid plans available with unlimited features based on team size

Best features:

• Quick and easy to use
• Customizable polls
• Integration with Slack

Pricing:

• Free: Limited use per month
• Premium: Unlimited use starting at $49 per month for 1-24 users
• Enterprise: Contact SimplyPoll to get more information

Daily Bot is a versatile bot that goes beyond stand-ups. It offers features like daily check-ins, retrospectives, and kudos to foster a positive team culture. It also integrates with popular messaging platforms and project management tools.

Chat integrations: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Discord

Format: Asynchronous text-based

Team size:

• Free plan: Limited features for up to 10 users
• Paid plans available with more features based on team size

Best features:

• Daily stand-ups
• Retrospectives
• Kudos
• Health checks
• Integrations with other tools

Pricing: 

• Free: Limited features for teams of up to 10 users
• Essentials: $2.10 per user per month with unlimited stand-ups, access to AI, and more
• Advanced: $3.60 per user per month with more advanced features and full AI access

Geekbot is a popular stand-up bot that integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams. It offers customizable prompts, reminders, and integrations with other tools like Jira and Trello. Geekbot is a great choice for teams who want a flexible and customizable stand-up solution.

Chat integrations: Slack, Microsoft Teams

Format: Asynchronous text-based

Team size: Limited free plan and pay-per-user options

Best features:

• Customizable prompts
• Reminders
• Integrations with other tools
• Analytics and reporting
• Retrospectives

Pricing:

• Starter: Free stand-up bot for up to 10 people
• Basic: $2.5 per user per month
• Enterprise: Contact Geekbot for a quote

Polly is a platform that allows users to create polls and surveys, Q&A sessions, suggestion boxes, pulse surveys, standups, live quizzes, workflows, and team-building activities. Polly collects feedback from a team, learns to know a team, and improves the team's communication and collaboration.

Chat integrations: Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Suite

Format: Asynchronous text-based

Team size: Plans depend on platform and number of users. Free and paid options available

Best features:

• Many integrations
• Analytics and reporting
• Versatility in application

Pricing:

• Slack: Free with limitations and paid option starting at 1$ per user
• Teams: Free with limitations and paid subscription options that vary on timeframe
• Enterprise: Contact Geekbot for a quote

Daily check-ins are helpful for assessing project health and individual employee performance to provide timely support and assistance. Still, they do not need to become another unnecessary meeting in a team's calendar. Asynchronous stand-ups, especially when automated using the bots mentioned above, keep teams on track to achieving their goals while providing useful analytics for future projects.