Communication Patterns

Chapter 15. Remote Channels

Methods of communication can be classified as asynchronous, synchronous, or a combination of both. Identifying the best method in a particular situation can be hard, especially if you don’t know the pros and cons of each.

This chapter explores how to get the best out of email communication, presenting and screen-sharing online, and communication tools you can use with remote and hybrid teams.

Symmetrical Email

Many see email as a necessary evil, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Symmetrical email is a pattern to help govern the process of sending and responding to emails and address the problems and inequalities email can cause. Here are the three main problems with email that this pattern addresses:

• Different people deal with and respond to emails in different ways.

• When to use email and when to use another form of communication, such as instant messaging, isn’t always clear.

• Expectations and clarity are usually missing from the emails themselves.

Your company or team may or may not have set expectations for email, but some of your colleagues likely check their email constantly, while others check it once a day or less. You also receive many types of communications in email form: newsletters, notifications, requests, tasks, and so on.

Without shared and respected expectations and processes around email, no one can reliably communicate. You need to know when to use email over another method of communication, how quickly you are expected to ...