Effective Communication in a Scale-up

Communication best practices we use to communicate more effectively in our company.

During the early years of building Road.io we realized we had a bit of a problem. As the business grew and our teams got bigger, the amount of communication lines were exploding. Building a technology platform in a complicated domain - with a lot of young employees - required us to improve the quality of our communication.

Born out of frustration, Gina and I created a set of communication heuristics to improve things. Our communication guide is really focused on improving asynchronous communication via Slack, but it could apply to other tools as well.

Today, every new joiner gets to read this guide as part of their onboarding. Of course our journey to improve communication is continuous and we still face many challenges today.

Here is a generalized version of this guide:

Communication Best Practices

For every person that joins an organization, the number of communication lines increases exponentially. This increases the potential for miscommunication and friction. The practices in this guide are designed to create more effective communication and to make all our working lives a little bit better.

1. Use the Right Platform

Our primary place of communication is Slack. Assume everyone’s e-mail inbox is a black hole. Urgent matters should always be escalated on Slack.

The use of e-mail should be relegated to communication with outside parties - preferably inbound addresses are connected to workflow services. Quick feedback loops with close partners should be done on dedicated shared Slack channels.

2. Use the Right Channel

Do you really need to send a Direct Message to that person? Or is there a relevant Slack channel that could suffice with a @mention targeting that person?

Please always choose channels over DMs. Your problem will be solved more quickly in a channel because other folks can be looped into the conversation, people will know what’s going on and the conversation can be referenced in the future.

If you create a new channel, come up with a name that makes sense in the wider context of the organization. Look at the channel directory and see where it fits in.

3. Over-communicate

On any given day there are many things that happen. People cannot remember all of it and they certainly cannot read your mind. Think about what the other person knows and doesn’t know. Reading your message once after you write it is a good practice in checking if the communication was correct and succinct.

Providing additional context is key. This could mean that you have to spend an extra 5 minutes by writing a paragraph or two. Perhaps re-sharing a link to some ticket? Perhaps a screenshot (of the full screen) in the thread to make it extra clear? Extra information in the thread can always be added for free without cluttering the channel.

Communicating clearly shows that you respect the other person’s time and will make responding to you a welcoming task!

4. Close the Loop

Closed loop communication is a practice in crisis response to ensure instructions are followed up with a verbal confirmation to avoid miscommunication. Even though we are not piloting planes or driving ambulances, the practice can be helpful in avoiding miscommunication and making conversations more actionable.

Closing the loop can mean a simple acknowledgement such as leaving an emoji or reply like “I’ll fix that”. Even a simple “Let me get back to you tomorrow” will help the other person in organizing their schedule. If the loop is not closed assume that no action is being taken.

Please note that sometimes the loop is closed on other platforms such as e-mail or phone calls. When this is the case, always try to close the loop in the original thread so that other folks know that action has been taken and no redundant energy is wasted.

5. Use Threading

Threads allow for more targeted and actionable communication. It can also help avoid too much noise in the channels. People can choose to tune into a thread or ignore it if it’s not relevant to them.

Don’t be that person that asks 5 questions in one single message. Be thread-friendly and create separate messages. Sometimes when many threads happened around a larger topic, it makes sense to provide a closing summary on the larger topic in the main channel.

6. Be a Power User

Familiarize yourself with some of Slack’s features:

• Use @person to mention someone and ensure they get a notification.

• Use @here to inform active people in the channel.

• Use text styling such as bold and italics to emphasize things.

• Use quotation marks (>) to add quoted context to your message.

• Use back tick quotation characters ( ` ) to highlight literal concepts.

• Use code snippets ( ``` ) to share copy pasted texts.

• Use common emoji reactions to acknowledge receipt (eyes), action (checkmark) or sentiment (any).