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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?

#191

Post by ta1243 »

bigfatkitten wrote: post #15
travisb wrote: post #4

Video calls. If you aren't having at least one video call a day something is probably wrong. Configure it such that starting a video call takes no more than 4 clicks. Have a company-wide General/Coffee chat where people talk about arbitrary things. It's better if this chat has history which expires in 24 hours. Write lots of short documents -- especially for designs. Review them much like you would review code. This…

> It's better if this chat has history which expires in 24 hours. Your legal and HR departments will be much less enthusiastic about this idea if your org is big enough to have either.

Set it to retain (for legal purposes) but make invisible (even to CxOs). You can still pull the data with a proper request.

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

#192

Post by em-bee »

zikduruqe wrote: post #137
em-bee wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what happens on that channel?

♫ ♪ ♬ It was the dark of the moon On the sixth of June In a Kenworth, pullin' logs Cabover Pete with a reefer on And a Jimmy haulin' hogs We was headin' for bear On 'I-1-0 'Bout a mile out Shakey Town I says, Pig Pen this here's the Rubber Duck And I'm about to put the hammer down ♫ ♪ ♬

oh you mean this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UAAwTlCp3OE :-)

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

#193

Post by danjl »

jonah wrote: post #189

We have a weekly "all people's" meeting every Monday morning - high-level wins for the past week and fires for the coming week, touching on OKRs, high-level direction, then each department goes through what they're working on/wins/fires. A bit of back-and-forth and "how was your weekend" at the beginning. Runs about 45-60 minutes. It's invaluable in keeping everyone on the same page and in the loop at a medium level…

If the items in this meeting were put into a shared document, not only would you stay on the same page, but you would have a searchable history, which becomes valuable as time moves forward. What really triggers my red flag here, though, is that "standing meetings" are one of the worst offenders as far as useless meetings go. Instead of forcing everyone to sync at a specific time, if you put these updates in documents or emails, you allow for more asynchronous consumption, and you don't affect the flow of individuals, especially if you have multiple time zones.

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

#195

Post by swader999 »

bongodongobob wrote: post #153
lvspiff wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I was going to say the same thing. Had this setup at my last job and the CEO would chime in with irrelevant, outdated, not feasible, or already considered ideas. We'd then have to spend time communicating and explaining the shit we had already been talking about for the last month or whatever. It was incredibly frustrating because it gave a public impression that our team was either incompetent or combative. It was g…

I wonder if they would behave the same way in an everyone in the same office situation. Team leads should take this as an issue to the CEO.

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

#196

Post by dboreham »

I've always liked to make bug reports (called issues this century it seems) the center of gravity for task-oriented organization communication. Unfortunately there isn't an obvious best in class solution available but github is usually not too bad. Or the issue system we dare not name (rhymes with era). Communication about non-task-focused subjects in Slack. No DMs unless for palace intrigue. Don't much care about meetings except for socialization. Nothing gets done in meetings but it's nice to shoot the shit once in a while.

Edit after reading other comments: no team private slack channels. Super annoying.

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

#197

Post by dboreham »

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…

Quick note that if you're actively working around the CEO on a regular basis, you need to stop and find another job. Or possibly replace the CEO but that's a high stakes low probability of success endeavor.

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

#198

Post by darkwater »

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…

That CEO would also micromanage in an office anyway. Oh wait, now it's called "founder mode" and it's something good.

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

#199

Post by swader999 »

underwater wrote: post #70
szszrk wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How to find comfort for and include characters that don't like the spotlight? At least not during early phase/brainstorming. I've worked with many great people that hate to handle things without their usual group first, and will stall until a reasonable approach can be presented. Which means creating shadow communication process - the more you push for "discouraging 1:1" the more they will hide. What your organisatio…

In my experience, most of the time this can be solved by resetting expectations. Once people learn that asking basic questions won’t open them up to mockery, things move a lot smoother for everyone. After all, a culture on 1:1 communication has a lot of downsides. The same question gets asked repeatedly, replies don’t become searchable, the same people (usually the most experienced) end up being constantly tapped for…

That's key, it has to be considered safe to ask questions. Anyone mocking or showing contempt to another on a channel would be immediately reprimanded in private by managers at my company.

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

#200

Post by jerf »

singleshot_ wrote: post #170
jerf wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The friendly guy smoking a pipe was merely ahead of his time. If we are flinging ourselves into an AI-driven total surveillance state we're all going to miss slack more than ever. Hopefully if anyone survives the AI-driven total surveillance state will eventually realize that with the degree of control it has it doesn't have to crack down on literally everything just because it can.
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