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With async communication it’s hard to know if everyone got it. If you’re in some kind of synchronous meeting, everyone knows what everyone knows, and it’s usual

by tobr 7y ago

With async communication it’s hard to know if everyone got it. If you’re in some kind of synchronous meeting, everyone knows what everyone knows, and it’s usually more clear if people are confused or come from very different POVs, or don’t have the time, attention or other resources they need to get things done. Async communication often feels like shouting into a void, hoping that the right people saw it in time and prioritized it appropriately.

tastroder 7y ago
> If you’re in some kind of synchronous meeting, everyone knows what everyone knows, I feel like while that's generally true, it depends. Not only because you might underestimate my ability to sleep with my eyes open. I've seen quite a few projects where in-person meetings were either badly planned, went overboard in terms of frequency / number of participants, or people were simply inattentive for other reasons. There's lots of scenarios where communication devolves to the point of asynchronous communication despite meeting face to face. Quite a few meeting forms type up notes or minutes for a reason. Many meetings in my experience are just superfluous "I felt like talking" scenarios, which is fine but it certainly does not make for a great communication strategy. I'd say it depends on who would meet, for many groups other forms of communication like e-mail/IRC/slack work just fine for a majority of issues without introducing much friction. But sure, for others it might break down completely.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Amen. I've had meetings where 15 people showed up, and everyone walked out with 15 different recollections as to what was done. At least one of those 15 isn't going to read the meeting notes that get emailed out after the fact, so we're going to have to rehash the same shit in a week or two.
icebraining 7y ago
You don't have to "hope". You can just ask them to read and reply appropriately (even if it's just with an "ok" or equivalent). Initially you might have to prod them explicitly, but people adjust rapidly and start acknowledging on their own.

by tobr 7y ago

tastroder 7y ago

> If you’re in some kind of synchronous meeting, everyone knows what everyone knows, I feel like while that's generally true, it depends. Not only because you might underestimate my ability to sleep with my eyes open. I've seen quite a few projects where in-person meetings were either badly planned, went overboard in terms of frequency / number of participants, or people were simply inattentive for other reasons. There's lots of scenarios where communication devolves to the point of asynchronous communication despite meeting face to face. Quite a few meeting forms type up notes or minutes for a reason. Many meetings in my experience are just superfluous "I felt like talking" scenarios, which is fine but it certainly does not make for a great communication strategy. I'd say it depends on who would meet, for many groups other forms of communication like e-mail/IRC/slack work just fine for a majority of issues without introducing much friction. But sure, for others it might break down completely.

blaser-waffle 7y ago
Amen. I've had meetings where 15 people showed up, and everyone walked out with 15 different recollections as to what was done. At least one of those 15 isn't going to read the meeting notes that get emailed out after the fact, so we're going to have to rehash the same shit in a week or two.

icebraining 7y ago

You don't have to "hope". You can just ask them to read and reply appropriately (even if it's just with an "ok" or equivalent). Initially you might have to prod them explicitly, but people adjust rapidly and start acknowledging on their own.