How To Rescue Your Team From Email Overload (3 Simple Rules)

00:00:00.000 | All right, let's roll on.

00:00:01.880 | What do we have next?

00:00:03.520 | Next question, Dave from DC.

00:00:05.760 | I work at a research center where everybody wears a lot of different hats and projects

00:00:09.640 | are usually short term, usually six months.

00:00:12.360 | And most of us are on a couple at a time.

00:00:14.760 | We have been given lots of tools to navigate through this email, Jabber, like instant messenger,

00:00:20.120 | Mattermost, open source, Slack, Zoom, and our newest addition, Slack.

00:00:25.220 | My supervisor read your book and then asked if any would like to make a communication

00:00:28.880 | policy document to lay out the ground rules on what a communication happens on what platform

00:00:34.720 | so we don't get overloaded.

00:00:36.200 | I stepped up to make the first cut.

00:00:38.260 | Any suggestions?

00:00:39.260 | I thought this was relevant to today's topic because communication plays such a big role

00:00:46.560 | in the impact of overhead.

00:00:49.800 | And I mentioned one of the two ways for us to tame overload is to tame the way that overhead

00:00:56.220 | coordination, the overhead made up of coordination collaboration, how that unfolds.

00:01:00.280 | If we could tame how that coordination collaboration occurs so it doesn't spread out so much over

00:01:04.860 | so much of your schedule, that would help the overload issue.

00:01:09.080 | So writing a communication plan for your company or team could be a good way of reducing the

00:01:14.500 | footprint of necessary coordination and collaboration.

00:01:18.520 | So Dave, I'm glad you took on this challenge.

00:01:20.880 | Here's some random thoughts off the top of my head.

00:01:22.800 | All right, if I was writing one of these things, I would say number one, email is for the following

00:01:28.380 | purposes, announcing information that does not require a reply, non-urgent questions

00:01:35.020 | that can be answered with a single reply.

00:01:37.340 | Hey, can you remind me what time this is at?

00:01:41.300 | Are you coming to this event next week?

00:01:43.380 | I didn't get your RSVP.

00:01:45.140 | Can you remind me which folder we were putting these files in?

00:01:49.300 | Email can also be used for delivering files or other types of content.

00:01:53.580 | So you wanted this contract, I attached it to this message, here you go.

00:01:59.460 | Keep email for those things.

00:02:00.460 | Anything that requires back and forth interaction.

00:02:04.300 | So beyond just answering a single question, this should be done synchronously, real time,

00:02:10.460 | we can just talk back and forth to each other in real time.

00:02:14.740 | Where should these interactions occur?

00:02:17.180 | One option, number one should be office hours.

00:02:19.540 | Everyone has office hours most days, maybe multiple times a day on some days a week.

00:02:26.140 | Well publicized when your office hours are.

00:02:28.740 | This is the default.

00:02:30.580 | If I have something I need to talk to you about that would require more than one back

00:02:34.160 | and forth, I will come to your next office hours and we can just talk about it.

00:02:38.980 | I don't care what medium you use to interact during office hours.

00:02:42.380 | It could be in person in the office, it could be on the phone, it could be on Zoom, you

00:02:46.140 | could just have a Zoom office with the office hours feature with the waiting room open.

00:02:50.860 | It could be on Slack, I think it's completely fine to have an office hours channel on Slack

00:02:54.940 | where people could just come and start slacking you go.

00:02:57.260 | The key is you want real time synchronous during those set hours.

00:03:02.620 | If the interaction requires multiple people, so you're about to use that CC button, you

00:03:08.900 | should have regularly scheduled docket clearing meetings for your team probably twice a week.

00:03:15.700 | There should be a shared document that accompanies these meetings.

00:03:20.540 | Throughout the week in between the docket clearing, if something comes up that needs

00:03:23.260 | to be discussed as a group, you add it to the shared document.

00:03:26.560 | When you get to the next docket clearing meeting, you look at the shared document as a group

00:03:31.060 | and you go through it piece by piece and try to tackle each of the items.

00:03:36.560 | So this could be a big discussion, we need to figure out a new strategy, or it could

00:03:40.140 | be a scheduling decision.

00:03:42.620 | We need to set up a strategy off site meeting when is good.

00:03:47.180 | Let me type that in our shared document at the next docket clearing meeting, there will

00:03:50.860 | be a point where we get to that we say, Okay, everyone, open up your calendars.

00:03:54.540 | Let's find a time right now.

00:03:56.560 | So if you need a seat, you would have used a CC message for that has multiple back and

00:04:00.580 | forth.

00:04:01.740 | Wait till the next regularly scheduled docket clearing meeting.

00:04:07.060 | If all else fails, then you can go to the custom scheduled meeting.

00:04:11.620 | All right, you and I have to just set up a meeting to talk about this.

00:04:16.420 | We can't do it in office hours for whatever reason.

00:04:18.420 | We can't do it in docket clearing.

00:04:20.700 | Only then do you fall back on a normally scheduled meeting.

00:04:23.760 | You need some sort of automated process for setting up meetings.

00:04:26.500 | So either you can expose calendars with available times or just keep I like this method, a text

00:04:33.700 | file of available meeting times for the next few weeks.

00:04:36.420 | And you just email that to the person if they select one, you schedule that and take it

00:04:40.380 | off the list.

00:04:41.380 | It gives you more control.

00:04:43.060 | And it prevents the person you're talking to to having to go to a third party app.

00:04:46.620 | So I like that method as well.

00:04:48.020 | But if you're going to schedule a custom meeting that to can't require more than one message

00:04:52.140 | in a reply.

00:04:53.140 | So we're never doing multiple back and forth over email.

00:04:56.160 | We're never doing unscheduled slack.

00:04:59.060 | Everything happens during a planned time.

00:05:01.540 | The custom scheduled meetings will be rare.

00:05:04.920 | If you have regular office hours and docket clearing meetings that will cover 80% of what

00:05:09.580 | might have been a meeting otherwise, and it leaves the meetings that remain to be quite

00:05:13.820 | reasonable.

00:05:14.820 | I would also recommend in the shared communication document that shared documents and folders

00:05:19.460 | are heavily used to collect information that needs to be accessed or updated by multiple

00:05:23.820 | people.

00:05:25.020 | Never ever ever use your email as a knowledge management system.

00:05:29.300 | Everything goes to a shared document that you can point people to that people can edit

00:05:32.260 | and leave comments.

00:05:33.920 | Other people can come and check.

00:05:35.260 | So that technology should be used a lot as well.

00:05:38.180 | Do those things.

00:05:39.580 | Dave from DC put that in your communication policy, you are going to see the footprint

00:05:43.940 | of the necessary overhead, this communication, the coordination collaboration is going to

00:05:47.980 | plummet and is going to make the same amount of execution require a lot less time and none

00:05:53.620 | of these tools, nothing here is a fancy tool.

00:05:56.720 | Nothing here is you need some whatever you said Jabber or matter most, you don't need

00:06:01.320 | anything complicated.

00:06:02.320 | You can implement these with the simplest Google workspace, whatever tools, that's not

00:06:07.460 | the issue.

00:06:08.460 | The issue is the processes that surround them.

00:06:09.740 | So there you go.

00:06:10.740 | That's my rough draft of a communication policy.

00:06:13.180 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:06:16.540 | (upbeat music)

How To Rescue Your Team From Email Overload (3 Simple Rules)

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