We're an all-remote company that allows people to work from almost anywhere in the world. We hire great people regardless of where they live, but with colleagues from 10+ timezones (and counting) it’s important for us to practice clear communication that helps us stay connected and get things done. For this, we use asynchronous communication as a start and are as open as we can be by communicating through issues tracker (GitHub), Slack channels, and placing an emphasis on ensuring that conclusions of offline conversations are written down. When we go back and forth three times we jump on a synchronous video call. These communication guidelines are meant to facilitate smooth communication in an ever-growing, all-remote company.
- We start on time and do not wait for people. People are expected to join no later than the scheduled minute of the meeting (before :01 if it is scheduled for :00). The question 'is everyone here' is not needed.
- Always turn on video — unless the bandwidth suffers, at which point one or more people switch to audio-only.
- Be mindful of background noise in your end. If you are in a noisy place, that noise will get transmitted to everyone and will interrupt the team's concentration. In this case, you merely mute and unmute your microphone whenever you are speaking/not speaking.
- Make eye contact and be mentally 110% there so the developer who's talking can feel your presence and not feel like talking to a computer screen :-)
- Pay attention to other team members; they may ask for help, OR you may notice that they need help without directly asking. Especially the daily calls are a chance for all of us to be on the same page AND help others to save time & sanity so that we operate as efficiently as possible.
- Make sure you've read and re-read the guidelines on Scrum overview so that you, for example, don’t give lengthy updates on insignificant stuff ("..and then I corrected a typo on page XYZ..." :-) )
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