Guidelines

🤝 Conducting Meetings

• Every meeting must have

  • An agenda - placed in the calendar invite helps others come prepared

  • A clear expected outcome - placed in the calendar invite and restated at the start of the meeting

  • Defined next steps

  • Agreed deadline

  • Assigned ONE owner for follow-ups

• Always question can I add value to this meeting, if not please do not attend. If mid way you realize you cannot add any value, feel free to mention this and leave the meeting.

• Create brief meeting minutes or record with Fathom

  • Meetings with 3+ people should have brief bulletpoints logged in Notion - this helps new joiners get up to speed

  • When people are OOO, one person is assigned to give context to what was missed to that person

• Before setting a meeting

  • Think whether you can get your answer via Slack or Email

  • Ask yourself how can these stakeholders help me?

🤳 Async Communication

• Use threads feature on Slack 🧵

• Aim to be as clear as you can in your Slack communications. Avoid one word answers, if someone has to ask ‘what do you mean’ or ‘can you elaborate’ you need to work on your communication

• Close the loop in Slack Threads - Examples: “Bug found, problem fixed, customer notified” or “We aren’t sure. Created ticket 428928 to chase this down in more detail”

• Everytime you write an ‘ask’ in Slack or in Notion to someone, aim to give as much context as you can. What else does the person need to answer effectively? What are the additional questions they may have?

• Update your status - if you’re away from your desk or need deep work time, your status should reflect that

• Proactively communicate status updates - if you cannot meet a deadline communicate with the person it will affect. A ‘Hey I haven’t got to this yet but it will be done by xyz’ is helpful to avoid people chasing you.

• Operational-focused Slack Grounds: E.g. Lab Testing/Engineering

• When asking questions to other team members in Slack, make the urgency clear to help your team member prioritise. Tell them if this is P0, P1, P2.

🏃‍♀️ How do we get the information we need efficiently?

Do not chime into discussions where your comment will distract the focus of the threads.

It’s simple

1. There is a person that is the authority that knows definitively the answer to the question

2. There is no such person, and the information lies outside of the company.

In the first case the only comms that should happen are:

• People telling me who that person is.

• That person saying what's going on.

In the second case:

• We verify that that is actually true.

• We identify a singular person that goes and gets that information and informs the team

Internal Memo

Effective Communication