EMBRACING ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION TO BUILD THRIVING REMOTE-FRIENDLY TEAMS

We live in an age of meetings where companies, even pre-COVID-19, were sending their executives to meetings for 30 to 40 hours or more per week. When offices were forced to shut down and move their workforce to remote working, what did they do? They doubled down on all the meetings! 

But meeting overload does not equal productivity or better results. 

It’s time we started really thinking about asynchronous communication, which includes every form of communication that doesn’t happen in real-time instead responses occur intermittently. E.g., email, team tools (Slack), project management tools (Asana, Todoists, Basecamp, Click-up), in-app comments (e.g., GitHub, Google Docs).

The ideal balance of communication on a remote team should be mostly asynchronous, with some synchronous communication mixed in only when necessary. Maintaining this ratio ensures you sidestep issues with synchronous communication and gain all the benefits of asynchronous communication.

Synchronised communication automatically sets-up a back-and-forth expectation. Everyone is online at the same time and quick responses are required. BUT you are always on and there is no time for deep work. No time away from notifications and it is definitely not time-zone friendly. 

In _It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work_, the Co-Founders of Basecamp, discuss the downside of synchronous communication, specifically, chat tools:

“With the proliferation of chat tools invading the workplace, more and more people are being asked to broadcast their real-time status all the time. They’re chained to the dot—green for available, red for away. But when everyone knows you’re “available,” it’s an invitation to be interrupted.”

Slack describes itself as asynchronous, but it leads to everyone having half-conversations all-day long. Individuals find themselves rotating through slow-drip discussions. One after another. Research has found that Slack users spend only 5 minutes on average doing work between communication check-ins!!! 

Talk about a productivity killer!

So, let's deal with where SYNCHRONISED and ASYNCHRONISED Communications are useful:

SYNCHRONISED –

• One on One’s

• Complex discussions

• Team meetings where everyone REALLY needs to know what is going on. e.g., broadcasts of staff updates, or small team standups.

• Social events

• Emergencies

ASYNCHRONISED –

• Discussions - Announcements, weekly and monthly updates (teams and individuals), project planning discussions (work cycles, product roadmaps), project discussions (e.g. financial projections, feature developments, campaigns), general feedback

• Collaboration - use tools such as Todoist, Trello, Basecamp for general project management collaboration, GitHub for development, document development in google docs, support in Zendesk.... the list goes on. 

When introducing a team to asynchronous communication it is important to have a strategy in place, for example:

• Set time parameters/expectations – ensure response due dates/times are in place to keep the momentum going.

• Organisation - be logical in choice of projects, threads, tasks, design, channels. 

• Detail-oriented – because you need to think more clearly and give thorough explanations to avoid significant back-and-forth. BENEFIT: encourages more direct problem-solving. If in doubt OVER communicate. Provide upfront info, deadlines, background, etc. You will get a better response anyway! Avoid acronyms. Link to relevant discussions/docs/tasks. Avoid making assumptions

• Always acknowledge the question, receipt, finalisation, wrap up. 

• Have clear owners and decision-makers. Who is responsible for closing off/moving forward. 

• Default to transparency. Opaqueness slows down work and prevents people from doing their jobs (no coffee break gossip to pass along info that is actually helpful).

Remote work requires a careful ratio of synchronous and asynchronous communication. When the two work in combination you get high-output confident distributed teams, better communication, better insights, better confidence, and greater outputs.

The future is remote, so let’s make it remote-friendly.

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