principle
- Personally, this might go on your domain or blog
- Organizationally, it might go on a wiki, intranet site, shared notebook, or project documentation
- helps with alignment and consistency in answer
- fosters intentionality when the answer should change
- (if useful) can show the history of those changes/decisions
- serves people not in the room
- saves you and others time
The best way to look good is to do good.
if you answer it again, write it down
Note: This is an operating principle. I have others, like “when one is remote, all are remote”.
If you find yourself answering a question multiples times or sharing a reference multiple times, then go ahead and document it and make it link-able.
Aim to make the above location as consistent as is useful.
But why?
If you feel like writing a thread, ask yourself if it should be a blogpost, instead.
when one is remote, all are remote
I heard from someone yesterday who said they feel more included in meetings, now. Why? Because they are no longer the “odd person out” in meetings.
Have you ever had that happen, where you you call or video conference in to a meeting and all the others are in a conference room? You get left out of the conversation. There’s table chatter you can’t hear. All the voices aren’t clear. People look at each other but not you.
It’s unfortunate that it took our current situation to remind us of this principle, but here is what our standard behavior for meetings should be:
if you have one remote participant, setup the meeting for all to be remote participants
Don’t reserve a conference room. Have each participant join from their desks.
It establishes equity in the meeting, and makes sure that all can be seen, heard, and considered.