Asynchronous Working

Asynchonous working helps people make the most of their time. Instead of being interrupted by people with questions or asking for favours at the most inopportune moment, you can work in a way that lets you reply to them in your own time. It means fewer meetings, better audit trails and keeping developers in "the zone" for as long as possible. This talk draws on my experience implementing asynchronous working in a company, as well as feedback from various other companies that work the same way, and aims to give attendees an insight as to how it makes people more productive.

Transcript

1. Asynchronous Working Sunday, 6 October 13 Hey. Hopefully you’re all here to learn about Asynchronous working. It’s kind of like remote working. But not quite. It’s the same processes and principles, but they’re actually *really* effective in an office.
2. YOU Sunday, 6 October 13 So, you guys
3. How many work in an office? Sunday, 6 October 13
4. How many work remotely? Sunday, 6 October 13
5. How many do a bit of both? Sunday, 6 October 13
6. I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13 I’m Michael I’m @mheap I’m a developer at...
7. I’m @mheap I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13 I’m Michael I’m @mheap I’m a developer at...
8. I’m a developer I’m @mheap I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13 I’m Michael I’m @mheap I’m a developer at...
9. Sunday, 6 October 13 I’m a developer at DataSift. We process huge amounts of data in realtime, including (but not limited to) the Twitter firehose. We’re hiring! Sales, Devs, QA, Operations. Come and find me later if you’re interested. We work pretty asynchronously with 25 developers and five ops guys.
10. Sunday, 6 October 13 But all this goes back to when I worked at Tweetdig. We were a small team, 5 people at our biggest.
11. Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
12. Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
13. Founder Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
14. Founder Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
15. Founder Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
16. Founder Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
17. Founder Me Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
18. Founder Me Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
19. Founder Me Sales Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
20. Founder Me Sales Developer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
21. Founder Me Sales Developer Designer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
22. Founder Me Sales Developer Designer Sunday, 6 October 13 We grew slowly, all in the same office. There was the founder. Another developer. Me. A sales guy. And a designer. Then one day I found I was more productive working mornings from home and afternoons from the office. There were less distractions. This worked well, until I realised I didn’t know what was going on in the office. I was missing out on face to face conversations. We needed to fix that.
23. Asynchronous working helps people make the most of their time. Sunday, 6 October 13 So, I got you in here with this statement. “Asynchronous working helps people make the most of the time”. How you ask?
24. NO MORE MEETINGS (*cue cheers*) Sunday, 6 October 13 No more meetings! Now, I’ve been told that not everyone hates meetings, but as a developer, I really do. Meetings exist to talk about doing work instead of actually doing work
25. Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
26. More productive Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
27. More productive Less mistakes Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
28. More productive Less mistakes Better innovation Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
29. More productive Less mistakes Better innovation Happiness Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
30. More productive Less mistakes Better innovation Happiness *citation needed Sunday, 6 October 13 But seriously. What *are* the advantages to working asynchronously? More productive, less mistakes, better innovation. Those are all well and good, but most importantly, people are HAPPIER. And happy workers = productive workers.
31. Current processes Sunday, 6 October 13 So, let’s take a look at your current processes.
32. Email Dropbox Weekly Review Ticketing System Sunday, 6 October 13 I’m assuming the majority of you use these kind of tools+techniques to some extent already. Unactioned emails, missing files, forgot to invite dave and now he’s double booked, verbal requests forgotten
33. Tools & Techniques Sunday, 6 October 13
34. Chat Room Sunday, 6 October 13 Even when working asynchronously, you need a way to chat in realtime. Emails and tickets are good, but they’re no replacement for realtime conversations. With a chatroom, any interested parties can join the conversation and participate in realtime, and anyone that’s not involved can get on with their work. If a 3rd party needs to know what was said later, they can just go back and read the transcript. A chat room makes communication in your company searchable. Need to find out exactly what was said about $client-feature? Just search the logs!
35. BONUS CHAT ROOM STUFF Sunday, 6 October 13 Chat rooms come with a huge bonus feature: Chat bots.
36. Sunday, 6 October 13 SIFTER, our IRC bot. It might look like fun, but it reduces institutional knowledge.
37. < michael> (›°□°ʣ›ớ ᵲᴸᵲ < sifter> ᵣᴷᴷᵣ ϊ( ʄ-ʄϊ) Sunday, 6 October 13 SIFTER, our IRC bot. It might look like fun, but it reduces institutional knowledge.
38. < michael> (›°□°ʣ›ớ ᵲᴸᵲ < sifter> ᵣᴷᴷᵣ ϊ( ʄ-ʄϊ) < michael> sifter what's for lunch? < sifter> Lunch today is Wagamamas Sunday, 6 October 13 SIFTER, our IRC bot. It might look like fun, but it reduces institutional knowledge.
39. < michael> (›°□°ʣ›ớ ᵲᴸᵲ < sifter> ᵣᴷᴷᵣ ϊ( ʄ-ʄϊ) < michael> sifter what's for lunch? < sifter> Lunch today is Wagamamas < michael> sifter what servers run client-app in prod? < sifter> Servers with role [client-app] in environment [production] are: example.com, example2.com Sunday, 6 October 13 SIFTER, our IRC bot. It might look like fun, but it reduces institutional knowledge.
40. Ticketing System Sunday, 6 October 13 Anything that anyone has to do, should go in a ticketing system. It gives people a one stop solution for working out what they need to be doing right now. It gives people a way to track progress on features they’ve requested, and it gives project managers a nice overview of where time is being lost.
41. Email Sunday, 6 October 13 Everyone uses email I bet. Email’s awesome for things that don’t need a reply *now*, and that don’t fit inside anything else e.g. a ticketing system. It’s for things like “Are you ok to demo $product to Google next week?” or “Fancy going to the pub after work?”
42. Pull Requests Sunday, 6 October 13 Pull requests are a technical term, but they apply to everything. You do your own little bit of work, then ask someone to review it. Once they ok it, it gets pulled into the company. Minimum 2 people, but whoever is interested can get involved.
43. Collaborative editors Sunday, 6 October 13 You know, something like etherpad. It lets people edit the same block of text in realtime (usually whilst using the chat room). Whether it’s a press release or a specification document
44. automate automate automate Sunday, 6 October 13 This is the big one for me, personally. A scripted process save you time so you can focus on doing real work. And again, automation reduces institutional knowledge. [Example about deployment]
45. Documentation Sunday, 6 October 13 Documentation! Can't just tap someone on the shoulder any more. Need solid docs
46. Chat room Ticketing system Email Pull requests Collaborative editors Automation Documentation Sunday, 6 October 13 Recap time. All of this is doable on a shoestring. You don’t need to go out and spend thousands of pounds to get up and running with it.
47. Implementation Sunday, 6 October 13
48. Start Small Sunday, 6 October 13 You can’t do it all in one morning. You need to gradually introduce it. Start with making sure all your tickets go into the relevant system. No more verbal requests. Everyone needs to be on board with this, if you get a request to do something and it’s not in the ticketing system, refuse to do it. If the request comes via a textual medium (e.g. chat or email - which it should) you have a log of you saying “Add a ticket”, so when it doesn’t get done you can just point them to your message. This is *really* important. These systems don’t work when half implemented.
49. Audit Trail Sunday, 6 October 13 Suddenly, you have an audit trail. That change that the client is insisting they didn’t ask to be done? You can look at who built it and who requested it to find out more.
50. The zone Sunday, 6 October 13 When you’re not interrupting each other (as you can just check the ticket system to find out what next), you’ll find that people seem to get things done more quickly. Some people don’t understand the zone, but I think Paul Graham put it best.
51. This is why hackers give you such a baleful stare as they turn from their screen to answer your question. Inside their heads a giant house of cards is tottering. - Paul Graham Sunday, 6 October 13
52. Clearer communication Sunday, 6 October 13 Which leads to clearer communication. It sounds odd, how people not talking to each other can lead to better communication. All things that make your life easier. If the ticket doesn’t have enough information, you can add a comment asking for more clarification and move onto the next task. Soon features requests will come with checklists. Bug reports will have screenshots, additional context and maybe even reproduction steps. I’m gonna show you a quote by Zach Holman at Github. Github are like the flagship company
53. Text is explicit. By forcing communication through a textual medium, you're forcing people to better formulate their ideas - Zach Holman Sunday, 6 October 13 Read the slide. I think this is totally right. How many times do you ask someone what they want a feature to do and they sit there and um and ah. That’s time you could be spending doing something more productive.
54. Clearer Communication Sunday, 6 October 13 As a bonus, text is “on the record”. If for some reason the developer that’s working on a feature suddenly can’t come to work for 6 weeks, another developer can read through the feature’s history and be up to date without involvement from anyone else. They can understand the state the features in, where it should be and the justification from it all, just by reading a ticket.
55. No distractions Sunday, 6 October 13 The next big step is to disable notifications. Close your email client, set yourself to busy in IM. You’re about to do some important work, you don’t want to be distracted. People can still come over and talk to you, but if they do, the building had better be on fire.
56. Taking it remote Sunday, 6 October 13 Eventually, your local talent pool is going to dry up and you need to start hiring remote workers. Here’s what you need to do to be able to support remote workers:
57. Nothing Sunday, 6 October 13 Thankfully, you’re already set up for them! It doesn’t matter if they’re sat across from you or in another country, the processes are the same. Which leads me onto another quote from Zach Holman...
58. Asynchronous communication means I can go to rural Minnesota and feel like I'm working from the office like normal - Zach Holman Sunday, 6 October 13 It doesn’t matter if you’re on the other side of the world, or if you prefer to work at 3am in the morning. So long as you’re using the tools provided, everything should work just fine.
59. Remote Week Sunday, 6 October 13 This was in the talk I saw before lunch, the way of the Herokai. I really like it as an idea. If you’re not too comfortable hiring remote people just incase it doesn’t work, close the office for a week.
60. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here - Heroku Sunday, 6 October 13 By closing the office for a week, you can make sure your processes work. Heroku did it and noticed that usage of the chat room increased by a significant amount.
61. I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13
62. I’m @mheap I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13
63. Any questions? I’m @mheap I’m Michael Sunday, 6 October 13