What is the Culture of Documentation at Remote and why is it so important?

We are a fully-remote, asynchronous, international company. Our successful operation requires comprehensive and trustworthy knowledge, stored in a way that is easy to find and use. Having a Culture of Documentation means that we work together to capture, transmit, and maintain this knowledge for all.

Why must we work asynchronously at Remote?

*So we can get things done without the need for meetings or real-time (sync) conversations. *****

When put into practice this means👇

<aside> ⏰ Immediate response to communications is not expected.

Remoters should prioritize tasks as follows:

  1. Customer/Business Impact 👩🏽‍🔧 Prioritize immediate customer/partner needs. Speed and responsiveness are key
  2. Internal Dependencies (Blockers) 🛑 Address dependencies and blockers to enable team progress
  3. Everything Else 🚗 Address other tasks from established backlogs </aside>

<aside> 🔥 The acceptance of additional responsibilities and expectations is understood to be:

  1. Respond to notifications with care 💜 Use features like comments and tags for detailed work conversations.
  2. Monitor org-wide activities via #announcements & #important slack channels. Hot tip: Use the new Slack AI summarizer to condense important updates ⚡
  3. Track personal work via preferred departmental tools. Use Warm Hand-off Protocol when Assigning Tasks to Others - When handing something over, the hand-off is not complete until you have some form of acknowledgement of the other party. Until then, you remain the owner of the action item / issue.
  4. Respect each team’s preferred working method. Use project management and task assignment mechanisms. Avoid side or private channels 🤝
  5. Maintain documentation verification
  6. For any sync meetings, provide detailed agenda and post-meeting notes or recording </aside>

What is needed for this style of work to be successful?

Successful asynchronous work requires trust and a common understanding of expectations. It also needs reliable tools and methods which enable clear communication, effective task management, and real-time progress tracking without the need for synchronous interaction with other members of the team.

We span a lot of time zones. Getting together on a call is expensive 👎 Instead, we want comprehensive and up-to-date records of projects, tasks, decisions, and processes. Team members must be adept at self-direction and time management.

This means identifying and focusing on high-impact tasks and switch between tasks as needed. Every remoter should Own the Outcome. This requires a high level of self-motivation and self-discipline, as well as clear and effective communication from leaders about team and company goals and priorities.

Keeping all of this together is what we call our Culture of Documentation, a company mindset that fosters a sense of collective responsibility for the quality and usefulness of our documentation, and for the success of the team's or company's asynchronous work model as a whole 🤗

Respecting and Protecting the Remote Community

Great products are built on years of feedback from their users. It’s of vital importance to building a strong company, product, and brand that we can grow while maintaining a great community.

Communities are built on mutual trust. As a company we have to earn that trust by being transparent, fair, and responding to valuable feedback swiftly.

We are proud of and want to embrace our diverse and global team 💜 We ask that if you choose to share your personal opinion regarding politics or religion at Remote, please keep in mind that the people you are speaking too, might have very different opinions to yours. We encourage Remoters to consider this before engaging in both async and sync conversations.

We also ask that all Remoters consider our Care value and assume good intent when seeing a message they disagree with or find upsetting. If you ever feel uncomfortable in a discussion, please remove yourself from that discussion.

<aside> 👉 Next, learn more about 1. Why Good Documentation is Important

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