51–60 of 194 posts
Video calls are like single-room IRC 20 years ago, before PM, threads etc within same room were added. Probably just matter of months when we will see subrooms, side-channel whisper, history of transcribed logs and many other additions also in video calls. Just current software limitations.
Async communication is suitable to resolve some kind of issues. But it has two drawbacks: participants need to be competent at writing and reading prose (it’s harder than it sounds) and even with the best of care your ideas can easily be misinterpreted resulting in the loss of an async cycle. For problems which are not well defined, and where a lot of decisions need to be taken, especially when they verge toward the…
True, but readily fixed with "Can we talk about this when you have a minute?"
Also, losing "an async cycle" is a completely alien concept to me. I've been working remotely for a decade, never heard that phrase, and not entirely sure why it matters. Does a conversation that takes 14 Slack messages make the business less efficient than one that only took 11?
Honestly, I'm not trying to just nitpick, but why would a room full of people be beneficial to decisions "when they verge toward the arbitrary"? Wouldn't that be the perfect time for everyone to send their async opinions, and let a single decision-maker just decide? Large calls/meetings work when you don't know what you don't know - to get all the information on the table, and have all the knowledge in the same place at the same time. You talk, give answers where needed, assign some action items to people, and go back to your async lives.
As far as the initial statement that you must be competent at writing and reading prose... I'd love to hear more about that than "it's harder than it sounds". I've worked remotely with people with dyslexia and reading disabilities and C-level personalities that refused to get in-depth in any single communication. And one guy who had all those traits - the CEO... and it worked fine. None of that stopped us from doing our jobs effectively. You did need to learn how your co-workers communicated, but let me assure you - we were not excellent writers, we just knew our co-workers well enough to know their communication styles.
That is what remote work comes down to, at the end of it all. Not communication frameworks and rules of when to use what communication channel - but getting to know your team well enough that you know how to work together. If you do that, you succeed, whether remote or in an office.
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Bullets 2 and 3 combined are actually recommended for spoken communications as well. As the listener, before responding, it's a good habit to say "This is what I understand about your proposal" and proceed to summarize and give the original speaker an opportunity to correct you. Probably over half of the communications problems I've seen at work are because people don't follow this basic practice. They respond based…
> They respond based on what they understood, not based on what the speaker was saying. Lets say there are three main steps in responding to communication: 1. Comprehension of the original communication. 2. Mapping that communication onto the reader's priors. 3. Crafting a response that communicates the results of that mapping. The problem seems to be that the first two steps are typically left implicit indefinitely.…
It's really not hard to do. You'll never get there 100%, but getting to 80%? It's easy.
Fundamentally, it's faster to write and type than it is to talk and listen.
Having hired some freelancers recently, I've found that there is a world of difference between those who can communicate clearly and those who can't.
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I worked with a guy who was legally blind, but could function with a physical screen overlay device that magnified things up to pretty absurd proportions. He was one of the better communicators (in writing) in the entire engineering org. I think we should work on individual cases to make writing more accessible to people for whom it's a struggle. But we shouldn't just throw out writing and it's overall effectiveness.…
Totally agree - not suggesting we throw out writing, we would all be doomed. I’m sure your blind colleague wrote well - so do many of my dyslexic colleagues. Doesn’t mean it was easy or fast For them though. I suppose what I’m saying is that there’s no one-size-fits all or one thing for all tasks. This article highlights the advantages of writing. And I agree. But it isn’t the right work from home comms tool for all…
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Are these screen recordings with narration or video recordings from a webcam? Personal preference of course, but I'd be less able to express myself in a video recording than in an audio recording or written document, out of pure self-consciousness.
They are all screens. Rarely I record a design on the whiteboard and I end up in the frame, but I'm fine with it. BTW this also works much better than any spec. Self consciousness is an interesting problem. I prefer seeing faces on the screen during the stand-up (such as it is in the days of COVID), but I was told many hesitate to be on camera. Did you ever find a way out of this? Join.me has very small video size, I…
Getting people to turn on their cameras has always seemed to be a challenge in my experience, but it does seem contagious, once a few people do, everyone starts to over time.
It makes a huge difference to see peoples faces over talking into a void. I think empathy is a bit part of it.
Real-time, spoken communication is on-site work super power. When uncertainty is high, and an intense discussion is needed, spoken word is much more efficient, from my experience. People are fundamentally better at speaking quickly and taking proper turns. This all is much slower and more cumbersome in video call, phone call, or a text chat. The perceived sequence breaks, the turn-taking protocol breaks (unless enfor…
I think it boils down to with zoom, you are literally in someone's face, and it's very obvious when you aren't fully focused on them.
Perhaps the new way, with zoom, gave some people an opportunity to reset their manners? Not clear what the real reason behind it is, but I noticed it immediately.
What a great bonus it was.