Communication

Axelerant is a remote organization, and we must be deliberate about communicating. This guide is our attempt to normalize our communication types at Axelerant.

How do I use this document?

Regularly skim this guideline to remind yourself what kind of communication we use. And feel free to link to multiple sections of this guide when in conversation with an intent to either:

• Define standardized behavior, OR

• Improve this communication charter

When you think these sections could use improvement, go ahead and edit them. Be mindful that you are improving the document and not bringing in contrasting views without discussing it with the team first.

Underlying principles

As a remote organization, Axelerant prefers to err on the side of overcommunication. Moreover, all public and group conversations within Axelerant's scope of reach must be in English. 

When communicating, aim first for clarity and then for brevity. These principles aim to ensure the entire Axelerant team's inclusion in all conversations that affect them, even if in the slightest way.

Spirit of the principles

Over-communication

We acknowledge that we are not perfect communicators. We can neither convey our message with a universally consistent meaning nor claim that we can understand what the other person is saying correctly. 

Therefore, we should always do our best to clarify and support our message with examples that make the intent of our message obvious.

Timing

A message is most useful when it is sent at the right time. Strive for prompt communication in all matters so that the message's value is not diminished.

English language

Axelerant is a globally distributed organization, and our customers are primarily from English-speaking territories. Therefore, all our team members must communicate effortlessly in English.

Clarity over Brevity

Make your message shorter while keeping it approachable and clear to everyone involved. Otherwise, it is preferable to elaborate your sentence, give detailed examples, and even repeat yourself to ensure the message is clear.

Work Towards Alignment

When you respond for the third time or more, consider changing the communication type to allow more clarity between stakeholders. For example, shift from email or Slack threads to a quick Zoom call to speed up alignment.

Modes of communication

Axelerant utilizes various communication tools on the spectrum of synchronous and asynchronous communication. Here is a non-exhaustive list of tools we use along this spectrum.

• Asynchronous Tools

  • Email

  • Confluence

  • Google Docs

• Hybrid Communication (asynchronous & synchronous)

  • Slack

  • Jira

• Synchronous Tools

  • Zoom

  • Telephone

Idiosyncrasies of modes of communication

It is far easier to reason about tools that fall neatly into the asynchronous communication or synchronous category than those in the middle of the spectrum. As such, this document will dwell more on the hybrid forms of communication, which, not surprisingly, form a bulk of the communications volume at Axelerant. But getting the more uncomplicated cases out of the way is more manageable.

Asynchronous communication

Longer messages and gaps between responses and topics characterize this communication style.

Email

The classic example of asynchronous communication is Email, which is seldom used at Axelerant.

In the case of the Engineering team, it is mainly used for customer communication in cases where we have not onboarded the customer on Slack. Other departments, such as sales, would utilize email more often.

Regardless of the frequency of usage, standard conventions apply to the email, language, and format structure. As with letter writing, structure your email into paragraphs not exceeding three. When your email is longer than three paragraphs, rethink whether it should be a document or some other form of a post.

Confluence

Confluence is Axelerant's platform for broad communication with the whole of Axelerant. This is the home of our handbook, which includes guidelines and policies (such as this one) and meeting notes for various projects. Follow the spirit of knowledge sharing and use your judgment to determine how to structure your content in any Confluence Space. Ideally, you can begin by organizing your content into an outline with the key points you wish to address. Include the document’s purpose in the first few lines adding the most important information at the top. Break up the document into headings for ease of reading and use simple language when writing. For more tips, refer to The async worker's guide to writing — Asynchronous agile | Go “async-first”

Google Docs

Google Docs is a place for documents that need heavy collaboration and other temporary needs. Except in a few cases, a doc usually has at least comment access for everyone at Axelerant. Google Docs is excellent for sharing and collaboration but unsuitable for organizing information (which is where Confluence shines). This is why a typical workflow is that documents begin in Google Docs and end up in Confluence. This communication charter followed the same workflow.

Important considerations

In Google Docs or Confluence, be careful how you edit other documents. In most cases, highlight what you want to change and make suggestions rather than direct edits. The standard exception would be when the author already understands the changes you are about to make. Don't make the author go to "differences between versions"” to understand what you changed in their document.

Synchronous communication

This communication style is characterized by being able to converse with immediate responses. Because of this, the choice of tools doesn't matter as much, and we will describe our practices regardless of the tool you use (Zoom, telephone, Google Meet, etc.).

Watch the mute button. No one likes reminding you that you are on mute,” and you wouldn't like repeating everything you said. We know stuff happens, but do try to keep this in mind. The flip side is also proper. Keep yourself mute when you have to begin a side conversation or just a lot of background noise.

To improve remote conversations with better interpersonal connection and comprehension of body language, we encourage keeping the video mode on except when there are bandwidth issues (let the person(s) on the other side know this) or a psychological safety concern (discuss the safety concern with your Coach). The latest Zoom version has blurring virtual backgrounds.

Zoom Etiquette Suggestions

• Turn on the video unless you are not comfortable with the situation.

• Minimize distractions

  • Clean the camera lens

  • Declutter your background

  • Disable notifications

  • Use Zoom in full-screen mode

• Engage attendees

  • Lightly smile

  • Look at the person you are talking to by placing their video window near the camera lens.

  • Physically lean towards the camera, and when reclining, move the camera forward to keep your presence fuller in the video window.

  • Use non-verbal cues and responses with your hands and head.

Check Zoom's Using gesture recognition.

Hybrid communication

This falls somewhere between synchronous and asynchronous communication styles. These are challenging areas of communication because they can be confusing, depending on how you use these tools at any given time.

Jira

Jira is Axelerant's issue tracker of choice. We expect frequent and regular updates on Jira on specific issues; hence, it falls under the hybrid communication tools category. Update issues frequently with the correct assignee, description, workflow state, and other relevant details (log your chargeable time). Making sure this information is complete and appropriate is essential from both a historical and real-time perspective.

Slack

Slack is Axelerant's primary communication platform. Almost all conversations are initiated on Slack, and most end there. Apart from discussions, Slack is also used for #announcements, updates, and other notifications, making it asynchronous. Given the wide variety of uses and capabilities, it is unsurprising that Slack is easily misused or not optimally used.

Slack Etiquette

Since Slack is our primary tool for communication, it makes sense to document guidelines at the top level of the document rather than four levels down. Besides the following, there are more Slack guidelines.

Lean towards asynchronous communication.

Even though we could use Slack for real-time conversations, always begin your messages as if you were writing a letter (or an email). You should not send "Hi"” to start a conversation and wait for a reply. Write down the entire message and give all the necessary context.

When the person replies shortly, this may become a conversation. Otherwise, the person has everything they need to handle your message.

Lean towards open communication.

At Axelerant, we value openness as one of our core values and strive to begin open in many aspects of our work. For this reason, most of our channels are available for anyone to join Axelerant (public). We recommend sharing in open channels rather than private channels or direct messages. For example, our policy discussions are available, and channels begin with "disc-."” Use private channels for sensitive discussions only, which could not be helpful to the rest of the team. We should use direct messages only for dialogue that is strictly 1-on-1. Project communication is not a 1-on-1 discussion, even if there is only one other person on the project.

Mind the notifications

Let's get this out of the way, as this is unimportant. Every message you send might potentially notify someone. However, we see notifications as the responsibility of the receiver. This means we choose over-communication even though it might mean there could be a lot of notifications. Slack provides various tools to manage notifications; we expect everyone to set them based on their preferences.

Relevance

Please send your message to the channel which is most relevant to it. Sometimes, there might be two or more relevant channels, which you can cross-post. Many channels are intended for a specific use case, and you should strive to use the channel for its intended purpose. For example, we have an #internal-support channel for seeking support (which you should use whenever you're stuck). We also have various "guild"” channels for discussions and sharing links related to a specific topic. Our project channels generally begin with the word "eng-"” indicating that only project-specific discussion happens in the channel (apart from any notifications). There are many other miscellaneous channels, such as # humor, #cool-stuff, #happy-hours, etc., and you are encouraged to find those.

Thread your conversation

Especially in channels, reply to a message by threading it rather than in the channel. This makes it easy to find all relevant past conversations for a particular topic and feasible to have parallel conversations in a channel without cluttering it. You may or may not choose to thread in direct messages, as there is little chance of similar discussions.

Use CATTE

It's handy to remember a catchy acronym to communicate better using asynchronous modes of communication, but especially hybrid. The acronym is CATTE, and this is from an Alice Ko podcast.

• C - Context: Did you give the context?

• A - Answer: Did you answer the question?

• T - Timeline: Did you give the request a timeline or turnaround time?

• T - Transparent: Were you transparent?

• E - Emoji: Did you add an emoji for emotion? (See Poe's law on why this is important.)

Courtesy Alice Ko.

Channel Map

Use this to determine which communication you want to use depending on the context.

Emergency Chat

Slack is down

When Slack is down, and you need to connect with people, use the “Slack Down!” channel on Zoom.

1. In the Zoom desktop app, go to the Team Chat tab

2. Click +

3. Click "Join a Channel"

4. Search "Slack down!"

5. Click "Join".

Once the service is restored, go back to Slack.

Zoom is down

Use Slack calls.

1. Navigate to the appropriate Slack channel or direct message.

2. Use /call to trigger a call.

3. You may need to permit if it's your first time using Slack calls.

Once service is restored, go back to Zoom.

Slack and Zoom are down

Reach out via Google Chat/Email. Once service is restored, go back to Slack and Zoom.

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