In the last issue ""We discussed three articles about the effectiveness of various processes. About that "","" and "«.
This article is a compilation of short extracts from all three with my subjective reflections under the auspices of the general fart burning from inefficiency.
In the average hospital company in which I worked and work, all the problems that these guys are trying to solve are fully present.
About how Bezos turned off PowerPoint
As he tells us , Comrade Bezos changed the rules of corporate meetings. Now colleagues gather and, about half an hour after the start of the rally, read the notes prepared by the speaker themselves (to themselves) in the silence of the rally.
Then those who have nothing to add or are Informed (from the RACI matrix) can get up and leave. Those who directly work with the proposals stay and ask questions, make proposals and schedule the next meetings.
In my opinion, a completely normal idea, because... at corporate meetings, time is very often wasted on “cap” questions and results from those who want to impress their superiors. And also various jokes for holy wars.
Also, the advantage of reading documents silently is that some speakers may read slowly (or too quickly) or have various unpleasant speech impediments.
I understand that introducing such radical changes in the regulations of rallies is not an easy task, but I hope it will plant a rational grain in the minds of those who participate in them.
CEO who forces you to live 5 hours a day without distractions
CEO of a German company recently in that he began to force people to work for 5 hours and forbade them to be distracted by the phone and social networks during this time. People are shocked, but they are happier and more productive.
He also said that he had a similar experience earlier, when he agreed with his employer to give him two additional days off a week for a lower salary. After some time, noticing that he was doing the same amount of work as before, he agreed with the employer to restore the previous salary level.
Nowadays, more and more often we come across articles about startups and companies that use similar practices. In my opinion, there is a rational grain in this, and if we take the effective part of the working day, then we all hardly work more than 6 hours.
Also, some companies have an “overtime culture” when, in order to show their dedication to the company, people “sit” at work for 10 - 12, or maybe more, hours. With every extra hour, the average efficiency of such employees tends to zero. And you can often find these in the burnout hall of fame.
Working less but more efficiently is, I think, a great trend that can free up a few hours a week to communicate with those who really care about you (yourself and your family).
Asynchronous communication of duists
Duists are the guys from the doist company, they make todoist, known to many. Their CEO writes in the article ““, about how they implemented this system at home. There are several interesting points from it.
define:
- Asynchronous communication is when you send a message and don't expect to receive a response immediately. For example in the mail;
- Synchronous communication - on the contrary, when you send a message, the recipient immediately receives it, and immediately begins to respond. This also includes real time communication (rallies and 1 on 1 meetings).
According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, communication time in the office has increased by 10% over the past 50 years. Workers spend up to 80% of their time answering email and communicating.
Disadvantages of synchronous communication:
- Constant distractions. As procrastinator Maxim Dorofeev writes and says, in order to be more productive, you need to turn off all notifications in instant messengers. Here everything is the other way around. A huge number of notifications in the work chat constantly distracts from work. It is often impossible to concentrate;
- People prioritize being connected over being productive;
- Adds stress because... constant distractions do not allow us to distribute the load evenly, and we are forced to rush;
- Leads to quick, low-quality solutions.
Benefits of Asynchronous Communication:
- Control over planning your working time;
- High-quality communications instead of “reactive” responses. Communication is much slower and forces people to be more efficient and make better decisions;
- Less stress. You can act entirely according to your working time plan;
- The default state is flow (since there is no distraction);
- Automatic documentation if they use public means of communication (for example, Github or some forum engine, for example);
- Tolerance to different time zones (we can set any time lag while waiting for a response).
It is impossible to completely get rid of synchronous communication. Duists offer to create important synchronous chats (telegrams if the server is down), 1 on 1 meetings and team retreats.
What's up with the Dusts?:
- 70% async communication Twist, Github, Paper;
- 25% sync communication Zoom, Appear.in, Google meet;
- 5% offline meetings and retreats.
What do they recommend to implement a culture of asynchronous communication?:
- Overcommunicate. In correspondence, describe everything in as much detail as possible, anticipating possible questions;
- Plan your interactions ahead. Example “I want to finish this in 2 days and I will be glad for your contribution” instead of “I expect feedback from you within an hour”;
- Always check the document sharing settings (apparently they had problems with this and someone waited more than a day for the document to be shared);
- Before the meeting, share all necessary documents with all participants so that everyone is aware;
- After the meeting, everything that was discussed at the meeting should be included in the meeting document (Duists even practice recording the meeting so that someone can attend it asynchronously);
- Turn off all notifications;
- Use your waiting time productively.
Tips for leads from duists:
- Promote written communication;
- Evaluate people by their productivity, not by what soft skills they have and how much time they spend at work;
- Forget about working hours. (Who comes and leaves at what time);
- Create an atmosphere of trust (duists mean that everyone is responsible for their words, and the team must be confident that if you promised to deliver the code tomorrow, then you will do it);
- Increase local personal responsibility;
- Set an acceptable response time. Duists have 24 hours;
- Make transparency a priority. This means that the maximum number of issues should be discussed publicly within the company;
- Add quick force majeure communication channels.
Two points particularly puzzled me:
- About focusing on soft skills. In my experience, misanthropes rarely produce good maintainable code (it just goes against their feelings). And I think a code review with such guys will disperse the most seasoned team;
- About what duists call “an atmosphere of trust” (if you promised to deliver tomorrow, then the team must be sure that you will deliver the code tomorrow). This point, in my opinion, will add the anxiety that we got rid of during the transition to asynchronous communication.
In general, I liked the ideas that duists offer. At the same time, it seems to me that this will be an exchange of “sewl for soap”, i.e. Having won in constant distractions, we still have problems that do not go away - deadlines and the gallery owner's drum.
Instead of a conclusion
Ideas of squeezing juice out of people around the clock are fading into the background. Corporations now want people to work more efficiently and spend more time consuming to support the economy.
Please comment with your ideas on these topics. Maybe you have already implemented something similar in your companies. Post links to similar radical experiments.
Come chat in a cozy telegram chat . There you can communicate synchronously, distracted from anything.
Source: habr.com