Editorial
We’re used to being synchronized with our colleagues at work. In fact, the term “out of sync” is viewed as a negative and suggests that we’re not part of a well-oiled machine. Being together at the same time, at the same place has been the basis of work for hundreds of years.
The problem is we’re now over-synchronized. The opportunity modern collaboration tools gave us to break from our old working mindset has actually created more problems. We now have too many distractions as we respond to the demands of meetings, chat and channel messages, email and calls.
The benefits of being able to work from home some or all of the time are now being lost as knowledge workers become fatigued due to the incessant nature of modern working, in what’s being called the Great Exhaustion.
I recently wrote about the importance of asynchronous working as an essential tool to help combat the overload of synchronous collaboration. By moving certain practices to an asynchronous format, we can save time, improve knowledge visibility and indeed slow down the intensity of modern working.
Yet before you engage one of the big consultancies to prepare a 600 page slide deck, understand that you don’t need a complicated and unachievable wholly asynchronous working strategy. You can bring in elements of asynchronous work in small, practical ways that provide some respite from the Great Exhaustion.
Here are a few simple ways to get started.
1. Meeting Notes
Meeting notes are a simple way to adopt asynchronous practices without anyone really realizing it! In essence, meeting notes are a way to contribute to a meeting before, during and after. These can be contributions to an agenda, responses to a question or ideas and issues that can be raised at any time.
By contributing to the aims of a meeting before and after, we begin to build asynchronous behaviors and can start gleaning the benefits, such as more flexibility as to when we can contribute to a meeting, having more time to respond to things and creating a more inclusive environment, where we all have a more equal voice.
For example, we can ask participants for any barriers to the success of a meeting’s outcome before the meeting, respond to a question raised in the meeting afterwards or crowd-source the agenda to ensure the whole team gets a say in the discussion beforehand.
Meeting notes are easy to set up, with plenty of tools available, from virtual notebooks such as OneNote and Evernote, team conversation spaces such as Slack or Teams channels through, to meeting note and chat functionality within virtual meetings themselves.
Related Article: Mastering Asynchronous Collaboration in the Digital Workplace
2. Meetings
Regular, repeating meetings such as standups and team meetings have almost become today’s de facto measurement of productivity. They ensure that we show up, that we share our busy activities and that we still exist in a largely distributed world of work.
They also take up a lot of time. No doubt, we’re often sharing valuable knowledge and information. Knowing what our colleagues are working on, who they are meeting with and what barriers and opportunities they are facing is all useful stuff. But does it always need to be done in a live meeting?
There are a few questions we can ask to help us decide if the meeting should become asynchronous:
- Are we having, or expecting two-way conversations? If not, make it asynchronous.
- Are we trying to come to a decision? If not, let’s make it asynchronous.
- Are we trying to gather consensus? There are a number of voting tools ideal for asynchronous consensus-based decision making.
- Are we meeting new people? It’s preferable when building relationships to begin conversations in a live environment. Otherwise, asynchronous conversations work well.
Running the meeting is simple. Timebox the meeting, so it’s in calendars and ensures that it reaches a conclusion. Add an agenda, with as much detail as possible — unless it’s a repeating meeting such as a standup. Post the opening question or statement in a collaborative tool, such as a Teams or Slack channel, Workplace or Jive (yes, Jive is still around!). Ensure that it’s clearly communicated to all participants and that they are aware of their obligations.
There’s nothing stopping us from trying out asynchronous meetings, seeing how participants adapt, learning which meetings work this way, and which ones don’t. We can always revert back to video meetings.
3. Coordinating Work
With so many ways of coordinating work, it's no wonder we default to meetings. Yet if we actually think about what we’re trying to achieve, finding an asynchronous alternative is much easier.
Are we communicating what we’re doing? Here, we can use messages and posts as we would in asynchronous meetings to share updates and movements.
Are we managing tasks and projects? Using visual task management tools help us to not only share what we’re doing, but align with what others are doing and gain their input. Tools like Asana, Trello and Planner are ideal for more collaborative and visual task and project management — and completely asynchronous. We can sync up when there is an issue to resolve.
Are we creating the work together? Using virtual boards, such as Mural, Miro and Microsoft Whiteboard allow unstructured planning and mind-mapping activities to occur in an asynchronous manner. It’s easy to create a structure, such as goals, risks, identifying stakeholders and so on, then invite others to contribute to the board.
4. Presentations and Announcements
When was the last time that you multitasked during a meeting that you had no involvement in? Maybe you were sitting (or standing) listening to someone’s Very Important Presentation, but the emails kept arriving, and no one was going to ask you to contribute, so you made the most of this “bonus” focus time.
Sharing a recorded presentation that allows attendees to watch at a time that suits them, or to pause playback to attend to more urgent matters provides more flexibility. It’s a simple way to start getting into the habit of sharing asynchronous information that isn’t urgent, or doesn’t require a conversation. We can still respond by replying to the message that shares the video, but at a time that works for us, or gives us time to reply with something meaningful (other than “another great video, Boss”).
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Related Article: Why Asynchronous Videos Are Better Than Video Meetings
5. Agreeing on Some Basics of Asynchronous Work
To really build on this, and make asynchronous work a significant part of how we work, get together with the team and agree on some basics:
- What tool should we use for urgent communication?
- What tool(s) should we use for non-urgent communication? Any identified here should be where we focus our efforts to hold asynchronous activity.
- What is a reasonable timeframe to respond to non-urgent, asynchronous activity?
After mapping out standard working practices, agree which ones need to be asynchronous, and which ones can be asynchronous.
With everyone in the team or group aligned, we’re all synchronized to get out of sync. Just remember, the more content the better. Asynchronous work thrives with rich agendas, proactive sharing of what we’re working on, responses and most importantly, questions. Asking questions brings people into the asynchronous world. What are you working on this week? Who are you meeting with? What barriers are you facing? What would you like to see here? Who needs a coffee? (me).
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