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Sorry, allow me to rephrase. I didn't meant that the manager's job is to dogpile everyone onto every issue. It was to make sure that work is being judiciously a

Sorry, allow me to rephrase. I didn't meant that the manager's job is to dogpile everyone onto every issue. It was to make sure that work is being judiciously assigned to the right people, and everyone else is getting progress updates as needed. My working hypothesis here is that, when there is someone that the team trusts to do that, it will ultimately reduce the level of overcommunication and design-by-committee. Everyone feels more comfortable focusing on their immediate work, and limiting their active participation in things that don't require their active participation, because they know they'll get the memo.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago
It doesn't matter much if the manager dispatches the pings ASAP or buffers them up for later. You're still letting Slack chaos drive your process instead of leading with process and using Slack as a tool. In some ways, having the manager buffer up the pings is even worse, because then each person has to revive the topic again if they want to have a voice. People don't want to be left out of important conversations, so the only solution is to watch Slack like a hawk all day. The people who spend all day in Slack instead of doing work end up dominating the decision making while the people who focus on work suffer. Instead, don't hesitate to gather people for a scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning to clear it up. Record important decisions in a single source of truth that isn't Slack, like your Wiki or ticket tracker. Treat Slack almost like you would in-office conversations: If you have a spontaneous watercooler conversation about an important topic in-person, you wouldn't go gather everyone involved to come to the watercooler to continue the conversation. You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. The in-person rules of communication and avoiding interruption are a good template for how to behave in Slack.
- gadabout 6y ago
  You keep assuming that the manager is only delegating via Slack pings, which is not my experience at all and also not what mumblemumble specified. The best managers know what the appropriate communication channel is for their employees and the issue at hand, and I don't think any strong managers are going to point to Slack pings at their preferred method.
- ticmasta 6y ago
  >> scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning This sounds great in theory, but one of the key issues with managing remote teams is there is no common time in the day that is "after lunch, end of day or first thing in the morning". The reality is most remote scenarios require you adopt at least some async process; fighting this is a losing battle. Some good news: your manager's job was always facilitate internally and protect externally; how this is accomplished has certainly changed but the core essence of management, if anything, is even more crystallized now.
  - mjayhn 6y ago
    I feel like I need to mention this in case some eyes see it that need to hear it. If you're running global teams and you have a side of that team that has to show up at the ass-crack of dawn every morning while you get to show up at 4PM with the entire context of a full work day behind you - ROTATE THE TIMES or ASK the engineers on both ends of the spectrum how they feel about it and be understanding if some of them don't want to show up at 8am anymore. Not to mention it puts us into a super weird conversation where we're half asleep and trying to sound like we know what's going on to someone grilling us with full cognition. Also, async is one thing. Respecting your peoples time is another thing. Slack, etc can show you what time it is in that employees time zone. How do you feel when the first thing you do is open Slack while sipping coffee and eating your bagel and your boss has 10 messages to you from 6am-9am your time? Probably not the best start to your day. Let people log in, socialize, be humans and colleagues for a little bit before you hammer them, especially now when work is the only real human interaction some people are getting.
    - sokoloff 6y ago
      > How do you feel when the first thing you do is open Slack while sipping coffee and eating your bagel and your boss has 10 messages to you from 6am-9am your time? Feels like it’s a day that ends in ‘y’. (My boss and our team get along famously and are all in the same time zone, yet have loads of traffic on our channel(s) between 6 and 9 most days.)
      - 6y ago
- mjayhn 6y ago
  > You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. Just my anecdata; this is the polar opposite of what I want. I do not ever, ever want a meeting or a follow up call over an async slack message unless it must be a meeting. Some managers really need to talk to their engineers and see what the engineers need to perform best and not make every assumption based on what they, the manager, are used to from the last 10 years of their career at 1-2 places. Forcing a square into a round hole makes engs leave and I've worked for a lot of managers who feel like they stopped growing a decade ago or are using outdated ideologies because the people who promoted them are so far away from the real people creating the sauce now.
  - freeqaz 6y ago
    This comment makes me realize that I've experienced both sides of this coin now. I've had the manager that asked for daily email updates. And I've worked in a grind silo until I was finished. There is a balance between them. I think where you draw that line largely depends on the team. An effective manager navigates a team by helping to unblock and de-risk efforts. It's hard for a manager to do that with zero information.
    - mjayhn 6y ago
      Yeah I've finally gotten enough experience to feel like I've run the gamut of management styles and the best advice I can give is that managers need to explicitly ask questions to some people and genuinely work to improve their performance. Some people (especially new or those who think they're under-performing) won't want to rock the boat at all and will hold their frustrations with things like I mentioned in forever. I used to be very bad at that. Now I'm pretty firebrand for employees to be treated right as I've finally been to companies that I felt did so (then back to companies that don't) so I recognize what I consider abusive places/mgmt pretty quickly.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    You aren't disagreeing, you misread Parent wrote >> You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Process should follow people, not vice versa. If you only allow collaboration at 10am on Tuesdays for project X and 2 pm Friday for Project Y, you are missing a lot of collaboration.

PragmaticPulp 6y ago

It doesn't matter much if the manager dispatches the pings ASAP or buffers them up for later. You're still letting Slack chaos drive your process instead of leading with process and using Slack as a tool. In some ways, having the manager buffer up the pings is even worse, because then each person has to revive the topic again if they want to have a voice. People don't want to be left out of important conversations, so the only solution is to watch Slack like a hawk all day. The people who spend all day in Slack instead of doing work end up dominating the decision making while the people who focus on work suffer. Instead, don't hesitate to gather people for a scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning to clear it up. Record important decisions in a single source of truth that isn't Slack, like your Wiki or ticket tracker. Treat Slack almost like you would in-office conversations: If you have a spontaneous watercooler conversation about an important topic in-person, you wouldn't go gather everyone involved to come to the watercooler to continue the conversation. You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. The in-person rules of communication and avoiding interruption are a good template for how to behave in Slack.

gadabout 6y ago
You keep assuming that the manager is only delegating via Slack pings, which is not my experience at all and also not what mumblemumble specified. The best managers know what the appropriate communication channel is for their employees and the issue at hand, and I don't think any strong managers are going to point to Slack pings at their preferred method.
ticmasta 6y ago
>> scheduled call after lunch, at the end of the day, or first thing tomorrow morning This sounds great in theory, but one of the key issues with managing remote teams is there is no common time in the day that is "after lunch, end of day or first thing in the morning". The reality is most remote scenarios require you adopt at least some async process; fighting this is a losing battle. Some good news: your manager's job was always facilitate internally and protect externally; how this is accomplished has certainly changed but the core essence of management, if anything, is even more crystallized now.
- mjayhn 6y ago
  I feel like I need to mention this in case some eyes see it that need to hear it. If you're running global teams and you have a side of that team that has to show up at the ass-crack of dawn every morning while you get to show up at 4PM with the entire context of a full work day behind you - ROTATE THE TIMES or ASK the engineers on both ends of the spectrum how they feel about it and be understanding if some of them don't want to show up at 8am anymore. Not to mention it puts us into a super weird conversation where we're half asleep and trying to sound like we know what's going on to someone grilling us with full cognition. Also, async is one thing. Respecting your peoples time is another thing. Slack, etc can show you what time it is in that employees time zone. How do you feel when the first thing you do is open Slack while sipping coffee and eating your bagel and your boss has 10 messages to you from 6am-9am your time? Probably not the best start to your day. Let people log in, socialize, be humans and colleagues for a little bit before you hammer them, especially now when work is the only real human interaction some people are getting.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    > How do you feel when the first thing you do is open Slack while sipping coffee and eating your bagel and your boss has 10 messages to you from 6am-9am your time? Feels like it’s a day that ends in ‘y’. (My boss and our team get along famously and are all in the same time zone, yet have loads of traffic on our channel(s) between 6 and 9 most days.)
    - 6y ago
mjayhn 6y ago
> You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know. Or you'd scheduled a follow-up call or meeting to discuss it. Just my anecdata; this is the polar opposite of what I want. I do not ever, ever want a meeting or a follow up call over an async slack message unless it must be a meeting. Some managers really need to talk to their engineers and see what the engineers need to perform best and not make every assumption based on what they, the manager, are used to from the last 10 years of their career at 1-2 places. Forcing a square into a round hole makes engs leave and I've worked for a lot of managers who feel like they stopped growing a decade ago or are using outdated ideologies because the people who promoted them are so far away from the real people creating the sauce now.
- freeqaz 6y ago
  This comment makes me realize that I've experienced both sides of this coin now. I've had the manager that asked for daily email updates. And I've worked in a grind silo until I was finished. There is a balance between them. I think where you draw that line largely depends on the team. An effective manager navigates a team by helping to unblock and de-risk efforts. It's hard for a manager to do that with zero information.
  - mjayhn 6y ago
    Yeah I've finally gotten enough experience to feel like I've run the gamut of management styles and the best advice I can give is that managers need to explicitly ask questions to some people and genuinely work to improve their performance. Some people (especially new or those who think they're under-performing) won't want to rock the boat at all and will hold their frustrations with things like I mentioned in forever. I used to be very bad at that. Now I'm pretty firebrand for employees to be treated right as I've finally been to companies that I felt did so (then back to companies that don't) so I recognize what I consider abusive places/mgmt pretty quickly.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  You aren't disagreeing, you misread Parent wrote >> You'd send out an e-mail update to others who need to know.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
Process should follow people, not vice versa. If you only allow collaboration at 10am on Tuesdays for project X and 2 pm Friday for Project Y, you are missing a lot of collaboration.