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My team adheres to a common set of communication practices. It's part of the Employee Handbook that all new hires into my department are required to read and si

My team adheres to a common set of communication practices. It's part of the Employee Handbook that all new hires into my department are required to read and sign. A summary: -- Email Sender: - If you need an answer urgently ("urgent" defined as one of two things: it's an emergency, or the information you are lacking is a blocker for what you are currently working on), either pick up the phone and call the other party or send them an IM, instead of emailing them. - Keep your emails concise and to-the-point. No essays. - Don't mark your emails as "High Importance" or ask for a read receipt. We treat all emails as high importance, and you can feel assured that your email will be read within 4 hours max (see below). Email Recipient: - Read all incoming emails within 4 hours max and respond after reading if possible. If you don't have the information the sender is asking for, or are otherwise not ready for a full response, send a short one indicating that a) you read their email and b) you will respond within X hours, where X is a number that is equal to or less than 24. - If the response is complex, summarize it as best as you can, and indicate that you will follow up in person or via phone to discuss the details. Don't write an essay back. -- The purpose behind these set of rules is alignment of expectations for both parties. Ever since we implemented them, the vast portion of our "friction" with regards to team communication has disappeared. For example, it's really, really nice to never have to wonder if someone has read your email, and also really nice to know when you can expect a response (which means you can decide whether you want to wait for a response or work on something else in the meantime). We also have a set of rules for IM (we use Slack) and phone, but those mostly say "be online and available, or mark yourself as Away or Busy as appropriate and people will respect it".

BeetleB 10y ago
>If you need an answer urgently ("urgent" defined as one of two things: it's an emergency, or the information you are lacking is a blocker for what you are currently working on), either pick up the phone and call the other party or send them an IM, instead of emailing them. I have a rule for my coworkers: I'm not available on IM. Either email me (if not urgent) or call (if urgent). IM is the worst of both worlds, where people can contact you instantly, expect instant responses, and not feel bad about not responding to your response. With a phone call, they cannot call me, and then stop talking in the middle of a conversation. With IM, they can. (Of course, I still use IM to communicate stuff like URLs, etc when on the phone). > We treat all emails as high importance, and you can feel assured that your email will be read within 4 hours max (see below). If they need me to respond within 4 hours, they should call me.
- meddlepal 10y ago
  Ah I love this but in a Slack-centric team this would be so hard to implement.
ajdecon 10y ago
> Read all incoming emails within 4 hours max and respond after reading if possible. Oh God. I hope this is "within business hours"? Because I sleep for more than 4 hours at a stretch, thanks. (Also: occasionally a comprehensive reply requires an essay, or the equivalent. What do you do in this case?)
- grzm 10y ago
  As for the essay-length response, I want to let you know I received your comment. It deserves a longer response and I hope to get that to you by the end of day Monday. Let me know if that doesn't work for you.
  - SkyMarshal 10y ago
    Alternatively, "Ack".
- dingaling 10y ago
  > occasionally a comprehensive reply requires an essay, or the equivalent. Use a bulleted list or a diagram. One of the worst e-mails I ever saw was about lifecycle of a token for PCI compliance, just a solid screen of words. My colleague who received it sat for an entire afternoon to parse it and drew a UML activity diagram from it, which he sent back to the mailing list to rapturous thanks. The original sender received only scorn, even though the was the 'authority' on the issue.

BeetleB 10y ago

>If you need an answer urgently ("urgent" defined as one of two things: it's an emergency, or the information you are lacking is a blocker for what you are currently working on), either pick up the phone and call the other party or send them an IM, instead of emailing them. I have a rule for my coworkers: I'm not available on IM. Either email me (if not urgent) or call (if urgent). IM is the worst of both worlds, where people can contact you instantly, expect instant responses, and not feel bad about not responding to your response. With a phone call, they cannot call me, and then stop talking in the middle of a conversation. With IM, they can. (Of course, I still use IM to communicate stuff like URLs, etc when on the phone). > We treat all emails as high importance, and you can feel assured that your email will be read within 4 hours max (see below). If they need me to respond within 4 hours, they should call me.

meddlepal 10y ago
Ah I love this but in a Slack-centric team this would be so hard to implement.

ajdecon 10y ago

> Read all incoming emails within 4 hours max and respond after reading if possible. Oh God. I hope this is "within business hours"? Because I sleep for more than 4 hours at a stretch, thanks. (Also: occasionally a comprehensive reply requires an essay, or the equivalent. What do you do in this case?)

grzm 10y ago
As for the essay-length response, I want to let you know I received your comment. It deserves a longer response and I hope to get that to you by the end of day Monday. Let me know if that doesn't work for you.
- SkyMarshal 10y ago
  Alternatively, "Ack".
dingaling 10y ago
> occasionally a comprehensive reply requires an essay, or the equivalent. Use a bulleted list or a diagram. One of the worst e-mails I ever saw was about lifecycle of a token for PCI compliance, just a solid screen of words. My colleague who received it sat for an entire afternoon to parse it and drew a UML activity diagram from it, which he sent back to the mailing list to rapturous thanks. The original sender received only scorn, even though the was the 'authority' on the issue.