Open By Default — Communication

Openness is an extremely powerful enabler of improvement and learning. GDS sums it up nicely with its 10th design principle: open makes things better.

Openness allows ideas to breed. If information is open then everyone can see it, learn from it, question it, collaborate on it and contribute to it. Open makes this virtuous improvement possible. Poor ideas are refined, good ideas are made better. This is why open is better. And why it is so powerful.

Look back at the open standards that have been the basis for significant freedom and creativity. The freedom of the internet is based on open standards — before TCP, HTTP, TLS, HTML, PNG, CSS and Javascript we had opaque proprietary binary specifications that restricted collaboration. And yet even when many of us argue for open standards and open source we work in organisations that silently engage in closed by default communications.

We need to challenge ourselves and our organisations to change. Moving to open by default for our communication will dramatically increase collaboration, creativity and inclusion.

Closed is limiting

One quick way to see why open is better is to consider closed. The word “closed” has negative, anti-competitive, restricted connotations because this is what closed is for — protectionism by restrictive behaviours.

Closed markets are anti-competitive and discourage innovative new entrants.

Closed education is unable to realise the potential of those who don’t meet the criteria.

Closed elections discriminate.

Closed minds are not open to consider new possibilities.

Closed source encourages lock-in behaviours.

Closed communication is designed to limit information leakage but in doing so limits potential.

Open is better. And yet in many organisations there is a tendency towards closed communication. It is understandable that organisations such as the security services require closed communication to protect people’s lives. But let’s be clear — most organisations are not MI6. Let’s take a closer look at closed communication to see if you recognise it.

Hierarchical communication

Hierarchical communication is when information and ideas are spread downwards through a hierarchy. Information flow is often restricted down the hierarchy. For example, decisions made at Level 0 are propagated to Level 1 with the implication that Level 1 should decide how to propagate further. This may result in no further communication or every else may be fortunate if someone deigns to propagate it further. Thought if they learn their behaviour from their boss they will propagate it down just one level.

Information flow is often limited up the hierarchy too. Thankfully in @KainosSoftware most people are open to conversation regardless of hierarchy but in some organisations open conversation upwards is discouraged beyond one’s immediate boss.

Communication through hierarchy is slow, inconsistent and restrictive in practice. It may be perceived as safer but in practice it contributes to a need-to-know approach to information. Closed communication has no place in learning, friendly and collaborative organisations.

Examples of hierarchical communication:

A new company policy about something non-sensitive given only to executive level staff.

An email about a new sales win — or sales loss that is sent only to senior people.

Targeted communication

We all send emails to groups of people. This is more often than not targeted at people you want to read it. You may cc others but even so, the email author decides who should see the the content. Others who are not on the email list don’t get to see — unless it is forwarded. This is a passive type of closed communication. It does not promote openness. Perhaps because of spam, it is unusual to see emails broadcast to [all company].

Examples of targeted communication:

All emails that are are not sent to [all company].

All private chat channels.

Team-only communication

Team-only communication promotes information flow within a single team. Others outside the team don’t get to hear about or discuss it. This behaviour is very common because it is easy to feel comfortable with your immediate team and less comfortable communicating your ideas to the broader organisation.

However, there is often no privacy or sensitivity reason for teams not to reveal their decisions, actions and lessons learned to those outside their team. On the contrary there is benefit for other teams to understand, ask questions and discuss. Teams will start to collaborate where their interests overlap and even greater benefit will follow.

Examples of team-only conversations:

All private team chat channels.

Private development controls for git, backlog tools, etc.

Team meetings where information is not published or broadcast.

Making communications open by default

I’m sure you recognise some of the anti-pattern behaviours above, we all do. Let’s change our mindset to by open by default. This mustn’t mean that all information will be open — but we should start with a publish-it mindset and only restrict if there is a good reason to do so.

Let’s focus on three simple principles for better open communication:

1. Broadcast over addressed. If your comms are broadcast then anyone can choose to read it, the author does not have to decide who is worthy to see it. Addressing comms to specific people or groups assumes the omniscient author knows those who need or will benefit from the information. This is highly likely to be a fail. Chat tools like Slack and Hipchat make this easier to avoid.
2. Conversation over monologue. If your comms allow and invite conversation then policies can be clarified or challenged; decisions can be understood and ambiguities can be ironed out. This requires the author to be confident enough in their decisions to invite challenge from the audience — a heathy antidote to complacency among leaders. It also connects consumers with communicators more deeply than if comms are just a declaration. Chat tools like Slack and Hipchat make this easier to do.
3. Published over restricted. If your comms are published in the open instead of restricted to a limited audience then its impact can be greater than what is intended by the author. This is the basis for crowdsourcing: gathering benefits from the anyone instead of a restricted group. So begin thinking information should be published — to the world or to your whole company and work back from this default position for sensitive information where needed.

I challenge myself and all of you to transform yourself to be open by default in your communication. Let’s change our organisations to be open by default from the top down. This process has started at @KainosSoftware but there are so many people yet to reach.

#openbydefault