[doctor_eval]

As I read this, I got the sinking feeling that I'd read it all before. But then I realised, it's just another case of someone thinking that their specific solution is best, solely on the basis that it worked for them, in their specific circumstances.

But here's the thing: every group is different, has different needs, and will respond differently to different styles of communication. Some people (especially people not using their first language) can find working in public stressful; some people get very stressed by the intensity of 1:1s. It takes all types, and as a manager, understanding how to get the best out of everyone is part of the job.

There is no single, correct way, and we know this because, if there was, then we wouldn't keep hearing about these interminable "solutions".

[rockostrich]

> Some people (especially people not using their first language) can find working in public stressful

Which is fine coming in, but the culture should be one that reassures these folks that public forums in the company are safe regardless of their proficiency with the main language.

Half of the people I work with speak English as a 2nd language (most are very proficient since they're mostly French-Canadian but there are plenty that make a bunch of grammar/spelling mistakes). That's never been the reason why folks try to use private channels to discuss work. The main reason I've seen is because people think it's more efficient to reach out directly to people. I've seen it a bunch with product managers and engineering managers that are new to the company and not used to a culture of trying to work out in the open.

[amrocha]

On the opposite spectrum there's the experience I had at a Japanese company as a fluent but not native person. All communication happened in public, and I was made fun of whenever I had to ask clarifying questions. The entire team would see this and got the impression that I was hard to work with since asking questions can be seen as rude in Japanese, and the Japanese staff would understand things the first time around.

So you know, both cases happen.

[rockostrich]

I think you just proved my point? I said it's a culture thing and you gave an example of terrible work culture.

[amrocha]

I wasn't disagreeing with you. I agree culture is the most important factor regardless. Maybe doing work in the open can exacerbate a toxic culture, but idk it was just one experience.

[doctor_eval]

If people find a particular way of working stressful then it doesn’t matter what causes the stress. It was just an example. Some people are on the ASD spectrum, some are extroverts, some introverts. Some might have other difficulties, big problems at home.

But there is room in the world for more than one way of doing work. There are drawbacks to doing everything in public just as there are drawbacks to doing everything in private. If you care about getting the most out of the individuals in your team then finding the right balance is hard, and there is no one solution that will work in all cases.

[datazzz]

I worked at a company that insisted on no direct messaging and no private team channels. It was stressful and counterproductive, in fact in the short time I was there (I left) I counted 3 different chat services people were using to discuss work topics that were outside the company. No one wants to perform their job on a stage all day everyday. Unless you're actually a performer, I suppose. It was also nearly impossible to keep up with everything and nothing indicated what I really needed to focus on.

Also worked at a company that encouraged people into public channels for inter-team communication and into team channels for anything useful to your team, but didn't have obnoxious rules around it. Also allowed private team channels. Worked perfectly, everyone felt comfortable talking to just their team in the private channels, and everyone searched Slack for old technical answers all the time because they were actually there, which is about as close to proof it worked as you can get.

Also there should be a buddy for all new hires and you should get a month or 3 of DMs with them because asking every dumb new-person question in public is tough for introverts.

[doctor_eval]

I’m just going to add that it looks like this is some kind of Slack hasslebot dystopia. They want all conversations in public so they can data mine them?

From the home page,

> Teamplify | Hey @anna.austin, we haven't seen updates for PROJ-716 since Thursday, July 19. Could you please add a comment there summarizing your progress as of today.

[stebunovd]

The notifications you're referring to are based on team rules that the team establishes for itself and not on Slack data mining - https://teamplify.com/whats-new/4987/smart-daily-standup/

[bombcar]

Chat clients as TPS devices. Wonderful.

[arbitrage]

Just file your TPS report. It's not like anyone reads them, anyway.

[dijonman2]

Slack is super annoying when used this way. I miss IRC.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> There is no single correct way, and we know this because, if there was, then we wouldn't keep hearing about these interminable "solutions".

Yes, this is very true, and it varies not only by person but by situation. But most people have a default that they respond best to.

- Some prefer IM

- Some prefer email and will respond to a group discussion with an email (sigh)

- Some prefer direct phone calls and will completely ignore your IMs

- Some prefer group chat

- Some prefer more formal group chats (MS Teams calls these "channels")

- Some want you to walk right up to them and start talking

The truth is you probably need a mishmash:

- There's a time and place for group emails, most notably when you need to include an outsider, or if you want a better paper trail of the conversation

- If your team is accepting of it, some form of group chat really is super effective at greasing the wheels, but I find it's inappropriate for lengthy, detailed conversations. Then it truly does become noise.

- Direct IMs, direct emails, phone calls, and foot traffic are all extremely easy to abuse and should always be used judiciously. None of these should be the default unless you know this is someone's preference; it's just rude.

The other side of the coin is that if a team member chooses not to be adaptable they are limiting their own ability to contribute. If you want to be a finicky communicator don't be surprised if you get the dull work or get overlooked when promotions come around.

[westurner]

Yes, but so is which is best for which situation still the question?

Presuming that information asymmetry will hold over time is a bad assumption, regardless of cost of information security controls.

Why have these new collaborative innovative services succeeded where NNTP and > > indented, text-wrapped email forwards for new onboards have not?

Instead of Chat or IM, hopefully working on Issues with checkbox Tasks and Edges; and Pull Requests composed of Commits, Comments, and Code Reviews; with conditional Branch modification rules; will produce Products: deliverables of value to the customer, per the schema:Organization's Mission.

What style of communication is appropriate for a team in which phase of development, regardless of communications channel?

[doctor_eval]

> Why have these new collaborative innovative services succeeded where NNTP and > > indented, text-wrapped email forwards for new onboards have not?

The new tools we have at our disposal are amazing. Of course they are better. But they are just tools. They don’t solve any problems relating to interpersonal communication any more than a hammer solves building a house.

> What style of communication is appropriate for a team in which phase of development, regardless of communications channel?

It’s the job of a manager to work that out. There is no formula. It’s not even possible to write one down. That’s the point.

[westurner]

Well, our societies value these communication businesses as among the most valuable corporations on Earth, so I think that there's probably some value in the tools that people suffer ads on to get for free.

"Traits of good remote leaders" (2019) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24432088 :

"From Comfort Zone to Performance Management" (2009) https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C43&q=%E2... :

> "Table 4 – Correlation of Development Phases, Coping Stages and Comfort Zone transitions and the Performance Model" in "From Comfort Zone to Performance Management" White (2008) tabularly correlates the Tuckman group development phases (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning) with the Carnall coping cycle (Denial, Defense, Discarding, Adaptation, Internalization) and Comfort Zone Theory (First Performance Level, Transition Zone, Second Performance Level), and the White-Fairhurst TPR model (Transforming, Performing, Reforming). The ScholarlyArticle also suggests management styles for each stage (Commanding, Cooperative, Motivational, Directive, Collaborative); and suggests that team performance is described by chained power curves of re-progression through these stages.

[toss1]

>>every group is different, has different needs, and will respond differently to different styles of communication

YUP!!

Especially when some parts of the group are working with Controlled Unclassified Information (even more so for classified); it's a legal requirement that people access it only on a need-to-know basis. Even without that, companies that rely on trade secret protection (Apple, SpaceX come to mind) must also compartmentalize their information both to prevent leaks and to protect it's legal status as a secret (you must treat a secret as exactly that, or risk it being declared public domain)

[opmelogy]

I'm curious what sorts of groups/contexts working together wouldn't benefit from this. I'm having a hard time coming up with examples. If we're assuming that group activity means people that are all working on the same product, I can't see an argument for DM's and private conversations.

[kredd]

In one of my previous workplaces, my coworker and I used to exchange very… NSFW language while debugging certain bugs. It was all in good spirit and humour, everyone knew that’s how we communicate with each other, and it helped to alleviate the tensions for us. Obviously we would also give out statements in public channels to explain what we’ve done and so, but in a more public-friendly way.

It’s like having drinks at a bar solo, talking to people next to you (a bit more reserved, avoiding specific topics) vs. having drinks with a close friend. I don’t mind if someone listens to my private conversations with my friend, but the direct audience is different.

[opmelogy]

Ah gotcha. In this case it's not actually that you are hiding away and doing all your work via DM. You're just using it for smaller discussions and then circle back with the larger team to share info. That totally makes sense.

I was thinking that the OP for this comment thread was claiming that there are situations where public comments/knowledge sharing isn't needed for teams, which makes no sense to me.

[speeder]

I had a situation where some stuff isn't done in the public channel out of politeness.

For example: While working with text written by non-native speaker, had to explain often to some members of the team t hat the text was just awful and needed a complete rewrite. But I didn't want to type this in public so that the "culprit" wouldn't feel like I was out to get him or something.

At least in my culture, it is extremely rude to berate people in public, so I extended this to also considering rude to "blame" people in public when explaining why work is late.

[dijonman2]

Speaking in public can invite unwanted opinions. There’s always someone who wants to argue, seemingly for sport.

Closed channels for teams are good but not everything is a democracy. I let my team make decisions but I can veto any of them, if needed.

[doctor_eval]

Exactly. There is a goal to be achieved - building some feature, say - and we need to find the best way to achieve that goal with the people on hand.

If forcing all communication to be done in public makes the goal harder to achieve, then ffs do something else. Don't just force people to be inefficient because of some dogma.

The goal is not "make all communication public". The goal is to get the job done.

[opmelogy]

> The goal is not "make all communication public". The goal is to get the job done.

Just adding that "get the job done" shouldn't be confused with personal productivity. Many younger/inexperienced devs that are highly motivated go through a phase (some get stuck here) that optimizes their personal productivity above the team's productivity. You end up with pockets of people that share knowledge (or hoard knowledge) with others left behind. You also end up with different subsets of people making different decisions, younger devs clinging to each other for feedback/guidance (yikes), and way more thrash that needed.

[dheera]

Yep. I would find it incredibly distracting to have to wade through piles and piles of discussions about things that I trust other team members to handle, just to search for something that's actually relevant to something I should be involved in.

[vasco]

If you're stressed by typing in your team chat you don't trust your team and therefore there's a deeper issue already. I strongly believe you are wrong because all the examples you mention signal different team disfunctions. You need to understand everyone is different, yes, but your team should use public channels to communicate.

[doctor_eval]

You strongly believe that I am wrong that there is no one single way?

So, you are saying that yours is the only way? And that being flexible and working out what’s right for your team… is wrong?

[vasco]

Yes, if you have a team, the team should discuss work progress, discoveries and problems in a shared space that is accessible by other team members. If conversations about the work itself happen in silos because someone is not comfortable, you're doing it wrong because you're fixing the symptom instead of the cause.

[swatcoder]

What if the “cause” is deeper than your influence can reach? What if addressing the “cause” is a multi-year endeavor?

Do you send the idiosyncratic team member home and forgo what they’d otherwise bring, or do you adapt your process to make the most of the team you have?

It’s great to have ideals to reference, but you miss a lot when you hold onto them as rules.

[doctor_eval]

> It’s great to have ideals to reference, but you miss a lot when you hold onto them as rules.

That’s is such a great way of describing my frustration with this stuff.

[robertlagrant]

Indeed. It's just like when people say, "Well, if that's your problem, you need to fix your hiring process." It's amazing how many theories require perfect hiring.

[vasco]

I didn't mention hiring, but if you can't build trust in your teams as a manager you failed your first job. This is not like choosing kanban vs scrum, if your team members can't even speak comfortably you're not running a team, you're telling individuals what to do, which might be what you want to do, but then don't call it a team.

[pierrebai]

You really taking a strawman extreme example I've never met in 30 years as a counter-point to "discussion should be in public as much as possible"? The article even mention that /some/ communication can still be private, but the default rule is to be public.

Your counter-point is "there are a miniscule contigent of people who can't function at all in a team". Weak.

[doctor_eval]

For my part, all I’m saying is that I’m sick of people coming up with golden hammers.

“The problems in your team can be solved with this ONE STUPID TRICK”

[doctor_eval]

So how do you propose you “fix” the cause, which is some human being’s discomfort at working in a particular way?

Do you force them? Sack them? Threaten them?

Or just send them for reprogramming?

Honestly, this is just cargo cult stuff.

[nh23423fefe]

It's not my job to fix someone else's dysfunction. It's their job to speak in public about work.

Being uncomfortable isn't a veto.

All your criticism is just framing. It presupposes pathological work practices are actually just personal quirks. If you can't type a question in a slack with 20 members you are basically useless.

[doctor_eval]

I’m actually saying that pathological work rules will mean you don’t get the most out of your team.

[ultimape]

Good luck with all the alcoholic types you're going to be generating as a side effect of forcing people with anxiety issues into talking in a public space. You'll be seeing self-medication for gaba dysfunctions as people try to keep their job. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4303399/