I do not agree . Unfortunately, most people lack basic communication skills. I don't think it's good for nonsense to come out of a one-to-one message and be on a channel.
Why public chats are better than direct messages
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Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#12I do not agree . Unfortunately, most people lack basic communication skills. I don't think it's good for nonsense to come out of a one-to-one message and be on a channel.
So hire those who have communication skills or teach them.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#13Or why you should not use chats but use forums or QA setups. Use something that can be searched, and doesn't require one to have an account to read the messages and/or search.
This is internal to a company - everyone able to access the chat better have and account and use it - you need to be sure who said what. And setting up search on the chat is not difficult, we had search on chat 25 years ago.
Extracting useful information from a chat log is tedious and error prone, though. If it's something that should be saved for later, copy it over to a wiki or some such and edit it suitably.
Chat is ephemeral, treat it as such and everyone's life will be better.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#14There is a third option. When ever there is a private or out of band discussion, summarize it in the public discussion. Done well, this makes for the best of both worlds in part because it reduces the text that others need to read. However, it requires discipline and extra effort on the part of those having the private conversation.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#15They aren't. When I know who I'm talking to, I can tailor my message for them. If I talk to another embedded C++ coder about memory management, I can make my request short and concise by assuming that the recipient already knows what the placement new operator is, how it works, and what using it implies. That means I send a quick 10s chat message to ask for one thing. If I had to include all that background informati…
> If I had to include all that background information to make the discussion accessible to people who have different strengths, for example to the front-end Ruby developers, then my 10s one-liner would likely turn into a 30 minute 2 pages email.
This is a strawman scenario. Nobody expects you to make your directed C++ discussion accessible to the front-end Ruby developers.
The point is that a team needs to move team-specific discussions into shared team spaces where the relevant team members can observe and be informed or involved as necessary, as well as understand now and where things are decided.
The point isn’t to inform the entire company of every detail of every step.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#16Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#17I think this view is heavily influenced by the fact that the writer is a project manager -- I can see how having full visibility into all communications could make their particular job easier. The same way managers always advocate for more regular write-ups on your progress. The problem is -- they delude themselves into thinking that if their job is made easier, then everyone's must be too. The reality is that people who do the actual ground work need focus and want to avoid cognitive overload.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#18This is why, when a colleague has a question about a pull request, or my feedback on THEIR pull request, I push us to have the discussion in the PR comments, instead of the pernicious "I just have a few questions, it will only take a few minutes" that always adds up to more time and attention than people claim. There ARE often situations where opening a synchronous communication channel is necessary, but even then, y…
If you explain your motivations well (& politely & thinking about their POV), I suspect you'll not get that branding.
"Hey, sure I can answer your questions, but I often find it helps to do that in public so we have a track record... etc. etc. And I'm not immediately available, so I'll get to it soon..."
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#19There’s a fine line between promoting a unique work culture and having an authoritarian, micromanaging, infantilizing policy. I’m fine with this as a preferred approach but think I’d hate working at the kind of place that made it a strict requirement.
Re: Why public chats are better than direct messages
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Some people get it. But overall in the cultures I've done it in, it mostly gets me branded as difficult. Sorry to hear that. Getting the right balance of sync and async, and knowing when to use one or the other makes a big difference. In my current team we went through multiple iterations to come to a mix that works for us. If it's too much sync, the constant sync conversations drain you; if it's too much async, co…
I have learned that its good to praise in public, criticise in private. It is possible to have criticism in PR's private inside a company which reduces its "publicness" but some people are still sensitive even with the reduced exposure.
Some people are insecure and terrified to ever have a record of them being wrong or ignorant. That's understandable, especially in cultures that hire a lot of relatively unskilled people and h highlight that they're competing. I think it's essential that those who are considered senior or expert demonstrate their own vulnerability by asking questions that show they don't understand or know about something, and being grateful for the response.
If and when you have that trust, criticism also needs to be more structured and question oriented. E.g.
- I think the main problem we're trying to solve is X. Is that right?
- if we do this, we'll solve Y but we'll also have a new issue Z. Do we think we would rather have Z than Y?