How team communication breaks between email and messaging tools (and what to do about it)
What do you do when you have conversations around the same topic happening in multiple places?
Your team has been working through a project roadblock over Slack and feel like they’ve nailed it when it dawns on them that they weren’t cc’d on the emails with a customer, so they were unaware of the project pivot. The missed communication has left the team feeling like their work was for nothing and lacking the energy needed to solve the new challenge at hand.
How teams communicate plays a significant role in not only the quality and speed of work but in how those doing the work will feel about it. Convoluted systems that haphazardly evolve from individual habits and preferences slow your startup down. By taking the time to step back and evaluate your goals, tools, and people, you will be able to start the process of crafting an intentional system that will lead to a more productive and engaged team.
how DO you establish cross-platform communication that doesn’t slow down your team and let tasks slip through the cracks?
Understand how your project management is happening and build your communication framework to support it.
Why This Works
Different types of information need to be shared within a startup:
Internal updates and progress reports
External messaging
Decisions
Urgent roadblocks
And it’s not uncommon for startups to have an equal number of tools - or more! - that can be used for communication:
Email
Messaging tools (Slack, Discord, Teams, etc)
Zoom and phone calls
Text messages
Comment threads in applications like Google Docs
Project management tools
With all of these components, the potential for information to get lost or questions to go unanswered is high. The complexity only compounds the problem.
Peeling back the layers of an inadvertent communication system can feel daunting. But, remember, communication sets the tone for how we operate - “Conway’s Law: organizations design systems that mirror their communication structure.” Being intentional in establishing the rules will have a positive impact across your company.
Take the time to consider where information should reside and make the implicit explicit.
Create a system.
Build the muscle to make the new routine a habit.
The system you design doesn’t need to be strict or overly prescriptive. If it’s too rigid, everyone will fail just trying to keep up. You want to have enough structure so people are capable of navigating it on their own but then give people the white space to work within it. Over time, how individual people expand on the process could introduce fresh ideas to adopt across your company.
Why Do This Now
Establishing new communication habits is hard. It will be an uncomfortable process. But if you don’t try, you’ll never build the muscle for it. While the first approach you land on may not be perfect or may be outgrown quickly, that doesn’t mean you should throw out the effort entirely. A failed process can teach you a lot and that insight can make for a much stronger V2. Remember to document not only what worked and what didn’t, but reflect on the why to aid future decision-making.
As your startup grows, it will be impossible to maintain a mental map of every active project and the exact keywords you need to find that one great idea from some time ago that was shared in a Slack DM - or was it an email thread? Establishing a process for communication today will enable you to more quickly reference the why behind past decisions in the future and allow you to more easily get quick, high-level overviews of progress because you know where you can find the information you need.
how We Do: Identify where your current communication is breaking down and develop a process that integrates all of your team’s communication methods.
Whether intentional or not, your team has developed habits for communication. To improve a process, you need to first have a comprehensive view of what’s actually happening. To start, complete an audit of each communication tool you’re using and document the type of information you’re using it for.
Example: Email:
External Emails (to dos)
External Emails (information)
Internal Emails (to dos)
Internal Emails (new ideas)
Internal Emails (back and forth clarification)
Internal Emails (stakeholders changing the plan)
Internal Emails (progress updates)
Internal Emails (decisions)
Repeat this process for your other communication tools. Once you have your current communication landscape laid out in front of you, start looking for duplicates - and triplicates. The information repeated in multiple places will be what you should tackle first when building your new process.
When organizing where information should live, consider who needs access to what. A well designed system will enable people to answer the basic questions themselves by making it clear where they should look. By funneling different types of communication to specific platforms and building automated connections between platforms, you will also reduce how much work is required to keep the necessary people in the loop.
Tools 🛠️
Project management software
Create templates for projects of a similar type so you don’t have to start from scratch with each project. Lowering the time it takes to create a project in one of these platforms will help with adoption and outlining even the basic expectations with pre-set fields will help minimize the chance of important information being left out.
An email client like Superhuman makes setting reminders easy for emails that need follow-up at a future date. These same features exist in Slack, take advantage!
Look for integrations between your communication platforms to make moving information between them simpler
Slack offers one that will enable you to forward emails directly to specific channels
Zapier bridges the gap between many common startup tools
Slack Canvas creates a place within a channel to keep track of important information, to do’s, or anything you don’t want to forget
Leverage the search functionality on Notion Search, Dropbox Dash, Slack Search
Rules (Process) 📝
Establish which types of information are shared on which platform.
Clear communication and expectation-setting while onboarding new hires or when processes are updated goes a long way to establish a repeatable, structured approach.
Perhaps long-form project updates and explanations are better suited for email and shorter progress reports and questions live on Slack.
This most likely won’t be one size fits all across your entire company. Leave space for teams to adapt to their unique needs. Just make sure any deviations are shared openly so expectations can be properly set across teams.
Within your messaging tool, define how you use channels and when a direct message is more appropriate.
Does each project get a channel or only departments? If project-based, consider starting the channel name with proj- to quickly indicate its purpose. Standardizing naming conventions can make navigation through the platform simpler.
Do you want people to share responses or have conversations in threads?
Regularly audit these channels to make sure you’re cutting out noise. Archive when a channel is no longer active.
And use notifications settings! If you need to have visibility into many channels but aren’t an active participant, muting notifications aside from direct mentions can save you a lot of virtual noise.
Establish how someone should know if they’re required to act or not.
Direct mentions paired with a clear ask will cut down on back and forth for clarification and avoid a fire in a crowd scenario where everyone cc’d assumes someone else is running with it.
For meetings, establish rules for when agendas with expected output are necessary and decide where follow-up happens.
Is a summary of action items sent to those involved over email? Are notes and next steps kept in a platform like Notion? Or are they distributed over email or Slack?
Once your system has been implemented, make sure it’s documented in a place that’s easily accessible.
Make sure team members understand where this system documentation lives, which will make it a breeze for new team members to understand communication norms.
Take time to show them how the system works, and how easy it is and then provide gentle nudges when things fall out of order
Give someone a fish and you feed them for a day; teach someone to fish and you feed them for a lifetime.
This isn’t about highlighting someone’s mistake but about reinforcing the adoption of a habit.
Don’t forget to consider the routine (often tedious, particularly over time) tasks and updates that make up the core functions of a business.
Find a home for these tasks in your knowledge management or project management tool so you have the ability to track that they’re getting done. They’re the tasks we aren’t communicating about, we just assume they’re still getting done. And because of that, they can be the first to get dumped from someone’s list.
People 🫶
Set clear expectations for who is responsible for capturing and overseeing progress on which tasks - whether they be recurring or project-specific. If no one knows who owns what, chances are high tasks will get skipped.
If tasks relate to a specific tool, is the tool owner responsible for overseeing that it’s regularly updated?
If project-based ownership, is there one owner throughout the lifecycle of the project? If there’s a handoff of ownership, make sure it’s clear.
Consider including tool/comms oversight in existing org charts to connect people to process.
Identify key Slack channel administrators. These key become your culture keepers, internal product managers who keep cross-functional communication clear.
Actually Actionable
Nice article. Now what?
We’ve taken the ideas above and created an action plan for you and your team.
Understand your current “system”
Analyze the current flow of communication
Planning Session 1: Audit your existing channels and document which types of information are being shared on which platforms (30 minutes).
Planning Session 2: If you do have existing guidelines in place, document if there is a consistent step that gets skipped or is interpreted differently by different people. This will help you identify areas for improvement (30 minutes).
Meeting 1: Schedule project reflections (not post-mortems) to get buy-in from other members of your team. The goal of these meetings is to create a space for people to discuss not only what could be improved but also what worked well (1 hour).
Create the system
Brainstorm Session 1: Outline a new system that clearly outlines how channels should be used. Keep in mind the potential for tool fatigue if people are expected to record the same information in multiple places. You want a process that is thorough but not burdensome (1.5 hours).
Meeting 2: Share your ideas with different members of your team. A manager may have a different perspective on how this should work than an entry-level employee who is mostly focused on the execution of specific tasks. Designing for one but not the other won’t solve your problem in the long run (2 hours).
Build the habit
Meeting 3: Launch the new communication processes and encourage your team to keep notes on what works well and what doesn’t for future reflection (30 minutes).
You will eventually outgrow the solution you arrive at today so don’t be afraid to continue adapting based on your team’s feedback and your growth path.
It's tempting to focus on execution and let the overlap of communication channels be a problem for tomorrow. However, this invisible friction will slow your startup down and ultimately hinder your ability to build cohesive connections across your core team. When you take the time to consider, structure, and implement communication systems that work for you, you'll be surprised at how much smoother your teamwork will become.
Writer: Caleigh
Collaborators: Britt, Emily & Scott
Thoughts on a topic that you would like us to cover in a future issue - we would love to hear from you: founder@weofalltrades.com