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Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#161

Post by aen1 »

KronisLV wrote: post #89
paxys wrote: post #30

Make conversations public by default. If you use Slack, make team channels, project channels, announcement channels etc. all public. Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. This single change will have an immense impact on overall company culture.

> Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. Working at an established org right now, where the team is still remote first. I tried suggesting this, but got pushback and the team actually settled on the opposite. For example, they want any optional changes (e.g. suggestions) in pull requests not to be left as comments but discussed in private which 90% of the…

Sounds great! Where do you work?

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#162

Post by pasc1878 »

aen1 wrote: post #158
why-el wrote: post #123

I learned the following: - Everything public in Slack. Create a fun-sounding moto that discourages DMs. Even if a DM happens, and the back and forth resulted in a consensus, share that consensus in a public channel (which makes it searchable). - Record your team meetings, preferably with software that can AI-summarize. Folks on vacation / leave can get the rundown easily. - Encourage the sharing of solutions to vario…

Totally disagree. For introverts, "everything public in slack" means that I would rather not say something than have 50 people see my thoughts/rants/silly questions in public

The issue is what is best for the company. If a person is not asking or answering questions then they are not a valuable member of the team.

Keeping stuff secret and hidden does not help the project. If your team is 50 you are probably not the only one asking the question and several people would be able to answer the question, limiting to one just annoys the one you asked if they are busy and someone else is not.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#164

Post by AlotOfReading »

why-el wrote: post #123

I learned the following: - Everything public in Slack. Create a fun-sounding moto that discourages DMs. Even if a DM happens, and the back and forth resulted in a consensus, share that consensus in a public channel (which makes it searchable). - Record your team meetings, preferably with software that can AI-summarize. Folks on vacation / leave can get the rundown easily. - Encourage the sharing of solutions to vario…

You also need a way to go from code->team's Slack channel if you want to eliminate DMs. I can easily DM the people who maintain a file from the info in the git log or the CODEOWNERS file, but I can't look up the slack channel they share without writing a slack bot and talking to IT.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#165

Post by danjl »

Use Google docs. Ideally, everything or as much as possible should be public and accessible to anyone on the team. Especially planning and scheduling documents. Each meeting should have an agenda attached to the meeting on the Calendar. Each meeting should be transcribed and then summarized using Gemini.

Minimize the unsearchable communication tools, like Slack and Discord, though these tools are fantastic for casual conversations. Everything possible should be done to minimize notifications from Slack/Discord. In fact, minimize interruptions as much as possible to maximize the asynchronous benefits of working remotely.

On the development side, everything should be code reviewed before merging to main, as this helps spread knowledge and increase the signal:noise in written communications.

On the business side, all customer meetings (many of which should use GMeet), should be transcribed and summarized so the developers and other folks can be as close to the customer as possible.

Meet in person as a whole company AT LEAST once per year, perhaps 2-3 times. This can get expensive. As the team learns each other, the frequency can reduce. During periods of employee growth, increase the frequency.

Read "Remote" and other books by the Basecamp team.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#166

Post by switch007 »

lvspiff wrote: post #117
paxys wrote: post #30

Make conversations public by default. If you use Slack, make team channels, project channels, announcement channels etc. all public. Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. This single change will have an immense impact on overall company culture.

I'm at a company now where we are trying to do this but the CIO/CEO keep weighing in on EVERY conversation where they disagree with the approaach. The whole reason we are having the open conversation is for ideation and good communication but when a high level person comes along and says "well thats not the way I would do it" everyone decides to go back to 1:1s, direct messaging, and calls so as not to document anyth…

You need a private channel with everyone except the C-level. We find this very, very effective at our 2500+ person org

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#167

Post by pasc1878 »

lutorm wrote: post #140
paxys wrote: post #30

Make conversations public by default. If you use Slack, make team channels, project channels, announcement channels etc. all public. Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. This single change will have an immense impact on overall company culture.

My experience (being fully remote for over a decade) is that it's extremely distracting to have all discussions public. It creates a lot of noise and it's very hard for people to not get drawn into conversations that doesn't directly affect them. It's definitely good to have finished conclusions available for everyone, but the "sausage making" is more distracting than useful. Of course it depends on the size of the t…

It helps to have lots of channels that specialise. I was effectively remote for 15 years (I was in London other in US). ` If you are concentrating then you don't notice the chats, unless they are made urgent. When your focus has finished look at the channels that are nearest your speciality or sub team.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#168

Post by serial_dev »

KronisLV wrote: post #89
paxys wrote: post #30

Make conversations public by default. If you use Slack, make team channels, project channels, announcement channels etc. all public. Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. This single change will have an immense impact on overall company culture.

> Discourage 1:1 and private communication unless really necessary, especially for engineering topics. Working at an established org right now, where the team is still remote first. I tried suggesting this, but got pushback and the team actually settled on the opposite. For example, they want any optional changes (e.g. suggestions) in pull requests not to be left as comments but discussed in private which 90% of the…

> I’ve also noticed things like the person who reviews a pull request being the one who has to merge it and essentially take responsibility for it, ...

I worked on some teams that had that and it wasn't bad at all. In the end, what's on the main branch is everyone's shared responsibility (...was our thinking).

It encourages real PR reviews, where the reviewer is paying attention to the changes, spend time on the review until they understand what is happening and why, and when they feel comfortable, they merge it as if the PR were their own. It doesn't sound efficient, but in the end it means you always have a backup person to turn to in case there is an issue, and we mainly only had "exotic" bugs.

This only works with the right team and leadership. It was completely normal to say "yesterday morning I spent half the day reviewing that PR".

OTOH, I was also on a team where PR approval means someone scrolled through your changes in 1 minute and didn't find anything blatantly wrong, go ahead and merge and hope for the best. This team broke the main branch in a significant way 2-3 times a week.

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#169

Post by sandbx »

danjl wrote: post #165

Use Google docs. Ideally, everything or as much as possible should be public and accessible to anyone on the team. Especially planning and scheduling documents. Each meeting should have an agenda attached to the meeting on the Calendar. Each meeting should be transcribed and then summarized using Gemini. Minimize the unsearchable communication tools, like Slack and Discord, though these tools are fantastic for casual…

we also use Google Suite. Google Doc's [] task button is very helpful. We use a single to-do list for the team, which helps keep everyone on the same page

Re: Ask HN: How do you communicate in a remote startup?

#170

Post by singleshot_ »

jerf wrote: post #126
em-bee wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is insane that we can have face to face and even video meetings that are not logged, but we can't have text based chats like that? what if we meet on IRC? should that be illegal without a bot to log the conversation?

Sadly, I'm sure that the only reason that face to face meetings are not logged is technical capability more than anything else. The law just hasn't metaphorically noticed yet that those can all be recorded to. It's still on the pricy side at the moment. (Don't forget not every business is a tech business that still reasonably expects 20%+ profit margins.) I often bang on the fact that laws made in the 20th century ar…

“Slack” under the law is quite an interesting concept. “Inherent logistic pseudo-discretion” might make me think less about a friendly guy smoking a pipe, but it has some disadvantages, too.

I’m interested by the fact that you and I could travel to Nebraska and whisper to each other in a cornfield in ways that violate the law left and right. Why is this not a huge problem? Because inherent in the logistics of getting there is a presumption that most law enforcement will use their discretion not to care.

Is cornfield-whispering becoming more powerful as other comms get weaker? Is it becoming less powerful as fewer of us choose to go to those lengths? Interesting stuff to consider in the golden age of surveillance.

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