The mystery unraveled: Async Comms
The mystery unraveled: Async Comms
The rise of remote work has brought many challenges to traditional forms of communication and collaboration. It used to be normal to just walk over to a co-worker and ask a question, to have a quick conversation at the water cooler, or to schedule a meeting with a few people to have a discussion.
In a remote situation, a lot of these options simply don’t exist. People are in different time zones, on different schedules or simply work at different times of the day.
Most of us have seen what remote work looks like during Covid, when we all suddenly had to work from home. However, we didn’t really know how to work remote. Meetings were converted to online in Zoom/Teams/Google. Our quick co-worker questions became online chat messages. And most of our casual conversations simply disappeared. A lot of us felt isolated during lockdowns as a result.
There is a better solution to deal with all of this: asynchronous communications.
What is it?
Asynchronous communication is a mode of communication where parties involved do not need to be available at the same time to receive or respond to a message. This style of communication is becoming increasingly popular, especially in remote and hybrid work environments, where team members are often spread out across multiple locations and time zones.
A summary definition by Preston Wick:
"Asynchronous work is a simple concept: Do as much as you can with what you have, document everything, transfer ownership of the project to the next person, then start working on something else."
Let’s break this down a little further. “Do as much as you can” means constantly working with a pro-active attitude. Don’t sit back passively and wait for others. Do as much as you can without involving others. Then, “document everything”. In an asynchronous environment, there are no recurring meetings to update everyone on changes and progress. By documenting and storing your work, task status and progress, you allow others to lookup the information they need themselves. You won’t be asked to join a meeting to update others on your work, and others won’t have to wait for you. And finally, “Transfer ownership”. If there’s nothing else you can do, someone else will need to take a next step. Hand over and let them take ownership of what needs to happen next.
The benefits of asynchronous communication are clear. It allows team members to do their work at a time that is convenient for them. The number of messages and meetings is significantly reduced, reducing the pressure of needing to be immediately available. Because of the action-bias, asynchronous comms lead to increased productivity, but at the same time also to reduced stress, and improved work-life balance. Asynchronous communication enables team members to more easily manage their workload, as they can prioritize and respond to messages on their own time. Finally, because there is no need to respond immediately to requests or messages, it encourages a lot more thoughtfulness and intentionality into communications.
How to get started?
Whilst the above sounds simple, effective asynchronous communications requires a shift in culture and mindset, from a "real-time" to an "async-first" approach. This means encouraging team members to prioritize asynchronous communication, and to view it as a way to increase efficiency and productivity, rather than as a hindrance.
The first step is to document clear expectations and communications norms, to ensure everyone is on the same page. These expectations and norms should go in-depth, including setting response expectations, guidelines to using clear and concise communication, and to keeping messages organized and easily accessible. Such guidelines should be documented as part of the remote handbook and evolve over time.
Gitlab shows how far in-depth such guidelines can go. As an example, the list the “Myths about Listening” and the “Tips for Effective Listening” in their communications guidelines.
Combined with these guidelines, it’s also important to choose the right tools, such as project management software, chat and instant messaging apps, email and virtual collaboration platforms. In the guidelines, make it explicit which tools should be used for which communications, or where documentation should be posted. As an example, a lot of organizations recommend using public Slack channels for discussions, so others in the organization can follow or contribute to the discussion, or find it again later should they have questions.
What about casual conversations and team connections?
While asynchronous communication can bring many benefits, there are also some challenges that need to be overcome. For example, as we’ve seen during Covid, remote work or async communication can sometimes lead to feelings of isolation or disconnection, as team members are not able to see and interact with each other in real-time.
To overcome these challenges, it's important to foster a culture of open and transparent communication, and to provide opportunities for team members to connect and collaborate face-to-face, either in-person or virtually. There are literally hundreds of articles with tips & tricks written to create and maintain personal relationships and team coherence in an all remote environment, especially with asynchronous communications. A very short list:
Build time to regularly connect informally 1:1 with colleagues. Talk about personal stuff: sports, family life, vacations, books, new things you’ve learned, etc.
Create time & space to celebrate successes and wins, no matter how small they are.
Have some fun!
Still, even in an all remote company, it helps to have in-person meetings. An annual company or team offsite meeting really helps strengthen those remote relationships.
In Summary
Asynchronous communication is a powerful tool for modern remote and hybrid workforces. With the right implementation, the right policies, tools, and mindset, teams can effectively communicate and collaborate, and reap the many benefits that this mode of communication has to offer.