The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace • Hacker News Board

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#231

Post by sixstringtheory » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 8:45 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #57

BigJ1211 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As one of my ex CEOs put it: "If I don't see my employees stressing out at thier desks I get the impression they're not working." This really hits the nail on the head, in my experience this is accurate for employers that are anti-remote , they want to be able to see people "work". I've argued that that means they are essentially paying people to be there 8 hours a day, not that they're working 8 hours a day. You s…

Likely they don't have any higher level way to gauge or measure productivity, which is why they fall back to something they can see: how many people are there and for how long. If they could measure how much work is actually getting done, they'd probably forget to even gaze upon the serfs toiling.

This seems like a big use-case for JIRA. It can do all sorts of reporting, and if you're engaged and looking at it every day you can see work as it gets done (as long as people use it in a way you've all agreed, which is a separate and simpler problem). Even a simple Trello board would go a long way (my personal preference).

Ironically, many places will use JIRA/Trello/etc, and then still have the sync meetings where you repeat all the actions you've performed on the board!

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#232

Post by jpincheira » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

The benefits you get from implementing asynchronous communication with your organization are huge. This is exactly why I felt the need to resign from my job last year to go build a platform that is designed from the ground up to support this.

As a remote team, implementing the async communication style will allow you to never have to depend on fixed calendar meetings. No need to have to organize everybody together in a room, at a specific time, to just make a decision.

I wrote a bit about how to do this within a remote team, which is a guideline into how to set a basic async comm process for a remote team. Hope you find it helpful:

https://standups.io/blog/a-basic-guideline-for-async-communi...

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#233

Post by detaro » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 8:52 PM UTC

jpincheira wrote: post #232

The benefits you get from implementing asynchronous communication with your organization are huge. This is exactly why I felt the need to resign from my job last year to go build a platform that is designed from the ground up to support this. As a remote team, implementing the async communication style will allow you to never have to depend on fixed calendar meetings. No need to have to organize everybody together in…

> I wrote a bit about how to do this within a remote team, which is a guideline into how to set a basic async comm process for a remote team. Hope you find it helpful:
> I wrote a bit about how to do this within a remote team, which is a guideline into how to set a basic async comm process for remote teams. Hope you find it helpful.

> I wrote a bit about how to do this within a remote team, which is a guideline into how to set a basic async comm process for remote teams. Hope you find it helpful:

Joke about async communication or copy-paste error?

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#234

Post by beefalo » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:01 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #223

umvi wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The very last thing any manager should ever do is punish their best employees (e.g. the person who can finish a whole day's worth of work very quickly). They are not the "best employees" if they are constantly idling, waiting for me to tell them what to do next. People here seem to think the ideal manager/subordinate relationship is that of a worker thread pool where the manager fills the queue and the worker threa…

It sounds like you do value creativity and autonomy. If that's the case why would it matter how many hours someone was working? Judge them by their output, not how they got there.

This depends a lot on what the value of their output was. If they want to do their tasks 5 times faster than the interns and leave then they can do that for intern pay since that's the value they bring. If they are actually doing more valuable work that involves understanding the product, working with other teams, designing new systems, and they can still do it in less than 40 hours then that is fine. Being effective at driving projects and making decisions are a different kind of work that usually take some time.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#235

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:04 PM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #80

krageon wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> management using past data as a stick to drive "faster" future development Of course bad management is bad, but the idea that the type of metrics available to them make any material difference is not one that has any merit to my mind. A bad manager will always make your life hell, regardless of what measuring tools they have available.

> A bad manager will always make your life hell, regardless of what measuring tools they have available. Correct. That's why developers with bad managers strive to make as few measuring tools available to them as possible. In other words, if you're a manager and your employees seem to resent and fight against more ways of measuring "velocity" and the like, you should probably consider that your usage of this data and…

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Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#236

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

chucksmash wrote: post #119

throwaway9301 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting question is: "why?". David Graeber's book "Bullsh*t Jobs" is about that. These companies main priority is not efficiency and productivity. If it was, they could hire less people to do the same work and that would foster unemployment. They have a political and social role: hire as many people as possible. Keep them employed and busy and keep an eye on them. Become too big to fail and you'll be rewarded…

> These companies main priority is not efficiency and productivity. Still with you here... > They have a political and social role: hire as many people as possible. You lose me here. Most companies are out to make as much money as possible now or in the near future. I spent the first three years of my career in QA at a total BS Jobs company (120k+ employees, lots of government contract and enterprise software work).…

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Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#237

Post by dmix » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:12 PM UTC

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #224

dmix wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the ability to come over and interrupt you by tapping you on the shoulder whenever they need something. Yeah, the answer to the OP articles question about why the remote studies work out that way isn't a big mystery. The first thing you learn working from home is self-motivation and training yourself to get "in the zone". Then try doing the same at an office, where interruptions are far more often. But that said no…

What if I'm both a creative/engineer (DS, actually), and an extrovert/talker? Do I need to ignore myself when I have headphones on?

It's a generalization, fall back on common sense and work with people who fit your personality/work style.

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#238

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:16 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #171

twoquestions wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what universe is that true? The very essence of being a boss is having the means to force you subordinates to submit to you, and at most companies I've worked with that's an explicit primary benefit to the rank!

Jesus Christ; firstly no, it's not a benefit whatsoever to be able to force someone to do something. Secondly, a boss who has to force people to do things rather than provide convincing reasons to do them is a terrible boss, and should be fired by his/her boss immediately. The "very essence" of being a boss is knocking out obstacles for the people under you. That is what a boss actually does, not tell people what to…

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Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#239

Post by chimi » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

diminoten wrote: post #148

twoquestions wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find interacting with people who are forced to be there (like fast food workers/coworkers/bank tellers) doesn't really count for in-person interaction. Personally, I'd rather interact with people who are honestly there, and aren't economically forced to submit to me or me to them. EDIT: Wait, are you a manager referring to your subordinates? If so, you may have forgotten how stressful it is to constantly be submiss…

Just because someone is your boss doesn't mean you have to be submissive to them.

What do you do with a boss, who, when you aren't submissive responds with, "You like your job here, right?"

Re: The benefits of a more asynchronous workplace

#240

Post by r00fus » Wed, Oct 16, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

VonGuard wrote: post #186

fizx wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has gone to the dark side, there's an interesting tradeoff here. There's basically three scenarios: (1) all employees are trusted and unmeasured, but you have to tap people on the shoulder every once in a while to confirm that they're on track. Naturally, this is easier if everyone is on-site. (2) everyone is accountable for producing of tickets, and you can check that everyone is at least doing some w…

Reminds me of an old adage about tech work and other skilled labors: If you give me a task that takes a normal perosn 8 hours, and I finish it in 30 minutes, you're paying me for the skill, knowledge and experience that allows me to do it in 30 minutes. I do not owe you another 7.5 hours of work. I owe you the job being done, not the hours it should take to do it.

As someone who works with client billable hours, actual work usually takes the least amount of time. The communication about your completion, testing/confirmation, documentation and shadow/knowledge sharing take the remaining 7.5h (using your analogy).

If you're truly doing all those things in 30m, you should be running the show.

Sometimes taking the full 8h allows you to put in the packaging to confirm you've done the "hard" part.