Literally everything would suck in a 20 person standup.

can confirm

Why would you have 20 person standups?

because government project? although I imagine this happens in non-gov settings too, this is just my experience.

Here's the reason: managers are so spread thin that they don't want to be in 5-10 standups all morning, so they combine around organizational structures rather than product(s)/deliverable(s). Another case of the software delivery matching org structure...

Of course the next question in line is "why is a manager involved in the standup?"

> because government project? although I imagine this happens in non-gov settings too, this is just my experience.

Why not split into smaller work groups? What's the advantage of 20 person teams?

organically this is what happens to actually get things done. but mind you, these small work groups are successful despite the large standups. life finds a way...

Well, yes, a 20 person standup is a little more than twice the maximum size conventional wisdom holds is appropriate, so it is going to suck to start with and much advice for normal 5-9 person stand-ups will be counterproductive and make it worse.

I know we tend to have little control over this as ICs, but I think the party line here is that 20 is too many people to effectively make use of most agile/scrum ceremonies. Do you actually need to know all 19 other persons’ updates?

Individuals don't, but the managers, who may be well meaning, feel the need to.