Communication 2.0. How to stay connected in a distributed team
If I were to ask you what communication is, what would be the first thing that comes to mind? When I think of communication I imagine what goes on between neurons in the brain of every human being.
When you are starting a company probably you don’t think how much of your success depends on effective communication. Moreover, it influences your company budget as a study conducted by the Project Management Institute revealed:
Companies risk $135 million for every $1 billion spent on a project and new research indicates that $75 million of that $135 million (56 percent) is put at risk by ineffective communications, indicating a critical need for organizations to address communications deficiencies at the enterprise level.
In Very Good Security (VGS) we are scaling teams quickly and must adjust our processes quickly as well as support excellent communication.
We hire smart people, we trust them, and as a result we have a great product engineering team. But who are engineers? I personally think engineers are creative problem solvers and use code as a problem-solving tool.
Why is communication a vital skill for product engineering?
Right now, more and more startup founders are looking for candidates with profound interpersonal skills that go with technical aptitude. It is also claimed communication is the biggest determiner of success in the modern engineer’s professional career. So if you want to work for a startup or build a team for your company pay special attention to valuable people skills:
- The ability to communicate your findings and ideas with others in a productive, efficient manner
- Aside from impressing their employers and being hired, engineers need to use communication skills every day. It’s important to make it as a habit and way of thinking
How to build clear channels of communication?
Rule #1. Don’t let people make assumptions. Don’t make assumptions.
- If you don’t communicate, people work based on assumptions.
- The more assumptions you make, the more misunderstandings will you have to contend with. Assumptions can cause undue stress and drama and ruin relationships.
More assumptions — more problems.
Rule #2. Be proactive in communication, ask questions.
Especially to avoid assumptions, ask questions. Here are some examples that can help to understand peoples’ motivations and reasoning:
- What is your goal?
- What do you want to achieve?
- What is important for you?
Rule #3. Build and support channels of communication every day.
- Be connected online via Slack or other work chat
- Use video calls and screen sharing
- Structure meetings: create agendas, take meeting notes, assign action items
- Nothing can completely substitute for live interaction. If you can travel — travel. Work together, have fun together.
How to communicate effectively in a distributed team?
Slack (or any work chat)
Chat is great, however, it’s a totally different way of communication than, for example, email. In chat, there is always an expectation of an immediate answer. But in the same way, it is a super quick and accessible method, especially in a fast-paced startup world. So you should remember two key points:
- #another-slack-channel can solve a communication problem
- Too many slack channels can be too diffuse
Think about your chat structure and purpose:
- Create specific slack channels with defined topics. Examples: #frontend-engineering, #qa
- Communicate in group chats vs sending direct messages. If you have a problem or a work-related topic to discuss, it’s better to use a public channel so that you can share knowledge with more than one person and it remains accessible.
Meetings
- Create an agenda for a meeting and share it several hours before a meeting, thus everyone can contribute and come up with ideas
- Meeting notes. Yes, someone should take notes which are shared with everyone
- Define action items. Each of them should be assigned a responsible person
Calls and screen sharing
- Use video calls sometimes to stay better connected with people
- Use screen sharing for problem solving or demos
- Have knowledge sharing sessions. Once a week we have a knowledge sharing session where everyone from the company can discover some interesting topics, give a demo, or present.
Live interaction
Nothing can substitute for live interactions. If you can, meet in person! Some things you can do:
- Apply for a business trip or organize a business trip. Working in one location for some time can help you to feel connected when online.
- Hack days. This is such an amazing event where all the team gets together and hacks creative projects, features or prototypes.
- Company retreats. That’s lots of fun at the end of the quarter get all together in some country in the world and plan the next one as well as exchange global company mission and discuss new ideas. Our last retreat was in Porto, Portugal.
To summarize this vision of communication I want to emphasize: help others, listen and you always win, all together.
