4 ms·

This isn't my experience, I find that people who are quick to initiate communication do really well. Doesn't matter too much about the writing (maybe some peop

This isn't my experience, I find that people who are quick to initiate communication do really well. Doesn't matter too much about the writing (maybe some people are much worse than us at writing) as we simply voice chat if things weren't clear

SkyPuncher 6y ago
This is how it is at my company (100% remote). Having Zoom on stand-by is key for us. Anytime things get complicated, we just hop on a Zoom call. All of us can communicated well in writing, but I don't know of anyone on my team who prefers it. For me, in particular, I'm an incredibly slow writer, so it's just painful to write too much.
- ketzo 6y ago
  It’s big where I work, too - I’m very into the little slack (there might be a teams one?) plug-in, where you can just message people “/zoom” and it instantly makes a meeting with whoever’s in the chat. It makes little 5-minute meetings for debugging or clarification super painless, which means we do more of them, which is huge for the team being on the same page.
  - names_are_hard 6y ago
    I doubt there's an equivalent Teams plugin because the standard solution for that problem in Teams is to click the little telephone icon inside the chat and you're on a call. Add or subtract video and screen sharing as desired. Continue to paste things (documents, links, whatever) inside the call's chat and it's recorded along with the chat/call. I have a lot of complaints about Teams, but there's something to be said for an integrated solution.
    - ketzo 6y ago
      Oh, interesting, that sounds pretty cool. I haven’t used Teams, but it does seem like the big sell is how insanely tied into everything else Microsoft it is.
- baby 6y ago
  This doesn’t scale well, every time someone needs to understand, or onboards, or wants to audit a process then they have to go through that. It’s really hard to improve on something not documented.
  - momokoko 6y ago
    I’m with a team that has scaled great with this approach and is now over 1,000 employees. Do you have any concrete research or even an anecdote about your statement?
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    I don't see how it doesn't. Our approach is literally no different than most in person companies. Instead of walking over to somebody's desk, we get on a video call. Sure, there are still things that require written communication - but day-to-day quick talk is no different. We still Slack, we still write PR feedback, we still document processes and policies, etc.
rorykoehler 6y ago
Voice chats don't leave a record if they're not followed up by writing up the content of the call (which rarely happens). Writing first protects against poor discipline and record keeping. I encourage people to write everything up. Nothing happens without a ticket on the kanban even if the solution has been discussed on a call. I can't count the number of times this has saved hours or even days of work further down the road.
harrisonjackson 6y ago
This breaks down quickly if you are across timezones like many remote teams. Async communication becomes the most common way of distilling info. It can't completely replace zoom/slack but it is critical for transparency and team cohesion.

SkyPuncher 6y ago

This is how it is at my company (100% remote). Having Zoom on stand-by is key for us. Anytime things get complicated, we just hop on a Zoom call. All of us can communicated well in writing, but I don't know of anyone on my team who prefers it. For me, in particular, I'm an incredibly slow writer, so it's just painful to write too much.

ketzo 6y ago
It’s big where I work, too - I’m very into the little slack (there might be a teams one?) plug-in, where you can just message people “/zoom” and it instantly makes a meeting with whoever’s in the chat. It makes little 5-minute meetings for debugging or clarification super painless, which means we do more of them, which is huge for the team being on the same page.
- names_are_hard 6y ago
  I doubt there's an equivalent Teams plugin because the standard solution for that problem in Teams is to click the little telephone icon inside the chat and you're on a call. Add or subtract video and screen sharing as desired. Continue to paste things (documents, links, whatever) inside the call's chat and it's recorded along with the chat/call. I have a lot of complaints about Teams, but there's something to be said for an integrated solution.
  - ketzo 6y ago
    Oh, interesting, that sounds pretty cool. I haven’t used Teams, but it does seem like the big sell is how insanely tied into everything else Microsoft it is.
baby 6y ago
This doesn’t scale well, every time someone needs to understand, or onboards, or wants to audit a process then they have to go through that. It’s really hard to improve on something not documented.
- momokoko 6y ago
  I’m with a team that has scaled great with this approach and is now over 1,000 employees. Do you have any concrete research or even an anecdote about your statement?
- SkyPuncher 6y ago
  I don't see how it doesn't. Our approach is literally no different than most in person companies. Instead of walking over to somebody's desk, we get on a video call. Sure, there are still things that require written communication - but day-to-day quick talk is no different. We still Slack, we still write PR feedback, we still document processes and policies, etc.

rorykoehler 6y ago

Voice chats don't leave a record if they're not followed up by writing up the content of the call (which rarely happens). Writing first protects against poor discipline and record keeping. I encourage people to write everything up. Nothing happens without a ticket on the kanban even if the solution has been discussed on a call. I can't count the number of times this has saved hours or even days of work further down the road.

harrisonjackson 6y ago

This breaks down quickly if you are across timezones like many remote teams. Async communication becomes the most common way of distilling info. It can't completely replace zoom/slack but it is critical for transparency and team cohesion.