<aside> 💡 How to communicate as a remote-only company? Over-communicate.

More importantly: Write Everything Down. Optimize for async communication.

</aside>

Morning Standups

Each pod kickstarts their day with the morning standup. Broadly speaking, the pod discusses important ongoing initiatives. They use this time as an opportunity to get on the same page, to seek help if they are stuck somewhere, and to get some collective face time.

Tips:

• What we don't do in our standups: deep dives. These are better to do in breakout sessions.
• Scheduled for 30 minutes but usually gets done in 15 minutes.
• As far as possible, please keep your cameras on.

Tools we use to work collaboratively

Slack

We live on Slack. Slack is our HQ. All our in-the-moment communication is on Slack. We hardly ever email each other.

Few suggestions:

• Post your message in the appropriate channel:
  • #general: this has become the catch-all channel.
  • #px: product and design updates and discussions
  • #wfh: your leaves or when you are not feeling well and taking an off
  • #random: as the name suggests, totally random things go here.. that funny meme, your hiking pictures, and so on. 🐕 🚶🏻‍♂️🎬
  • #references: interesting reference posts/articles that you come across.
  • plus tons of other channels.
• Please avoid creating private channels. Best to be open and transparent. For the same reasons, please avoid work/product discussions in private or group DMs. Those are better off in the appropriate public channels.
• Threaded Replies is the best feature of Slack. Please use it when replying to a message. It helps keep the discussion on topic, reduces clutter, and helps preserve our sanity. 😇
• Please don't DM with a 'hi' (or 'are you there'), and wait for me to say 'hi' back. That's the opposite of async communication. It's like sending an email with just 'hi'. Instead, establish the context of your DM along with the 'hi'.
• Slack is best for in-the-moment communication. While we can go back to old Slack messages and can search as well, it is like your Facebook feed. In a way, it is momentary and fleeting. For things that you feel you or others will need to refer back to, consider documenting those on Google Docs or Sheets (or the tools suggested by the client).
• We recommend you install the Slack app on desktop and mobile.
• Since the time Slack launched Huddle, our team has been using that a lot. It is a lot more lightweight than a Zoom call - but hey, please be respectful of each other’s time. Once again, provide context before doing a Huddle.