Save time with asynchronous communication

The technical world has moved from synchronous communication to asynchronous communication. Most of the modern communications have moved from circuit switched networks to packet switched networks. This optimizes bandwidth even as it guarantees excellent quality.

Humans have moved from sending letters and post cards to talking to people over the telephone to sending people e-mails/SMS and tele/video conferencing. As we went along we shrunk the world and connected to millions of people easily.

Now, personal communication has largely moved from letters to phone calls (more of mobile calls nowadays) apart from in-person meetings of course. Of late web 2.0 has spawned social networking that has been lapped up as well to keep in touch personally. Business communication is distributed between the good old letters/memos, e-mails, messengers, meetings, telecons, videocons and of course blogs to a certain extent.

My argument is to reduce synchronous communication methods like meetings, telecons, videocons and increase asynchronous communication methods like e-mails and SMS. The Blackberry and other push e-mail devices have made it even more possible to stay in touch in async mode. But are we using async mode enough and effectively?

Most of the business processes the world over isolate the individual and expect the individual to accomplish tasks, combine with teams to generate output and analyze ways to increase output or decrease costs. On the sales and marketing side also individuals design campaigns, go out to the field, generate reports and collaborate to increase sales or decrease cost of sales.

Software engineering is no different and the global delivery model has been built on this framework. We used to sell the concept of 16-18 hour work windows available for development. But what is happening? We are constantly in meetings/telecons - requirements analysis, design reviews, code reviews, test result reviews, project reviews, RFP reviews, pricing reviews, quality reviews, performance reviews - the list is endless. Which effectively means that an individual has lesser and lesser time to do actual work of design, coding, testing and documentation.

The much touted 16-18 hour window has become a curse robbing early mornings and evenings (even late nights) from family. We seem to be doing more talking than doing anything of substance. One would think we are in the media for all the talking/discussing we do. There are certain fundamentals that need to be corrected to move to async mode thereby increasing productivity and releasing time for family and friends.

Work
Work can be measured as actual output between meetings. We need to be accountable for the time we spend working. Now, this seems like basic stuff but we are too far off this. To do good quality work we need peace and tranquility free of disturbances. Sure we can have our coffee breaks but the workspace cannot be a contiguous coffee shop with chit chat, speaker-phones, etc. Though I am not a stickler for strict timings it may be a good thing to have meeting free time chunks in the mornings. We can then work peacefully and send over our work for review by our peers or supervisors.

Reviews
It has now become impossible for us to review something in the absence of the creator of the work material. This has diluted the reviews as reviewers are robbed off independent thinking and perspective. Review meetings have come to being brainstorming exercises with creators and reviewers. This is a double whammy as both need to spend the time in meetings when they could have operated better with the reviewer reviewing independently and the creator creating more output in this time. Telecons have become ineffective as rarely people come prepared with review comments and start reading material only during the telecon and again it becomes a brainstorming session across the seas. Reviewers should submit review comments before the meetings/telecons so that both sides are better prepared for a meaningful and effective discussion.

e-mail
If we can work and review as above the number of meetings and duration of meetings can be vastly reduced. We can use e-mail to exchange output/reviews and we can even use e-mail and/or messenger to discuss offline key points instead of doing it in a meeting with so many other people involved. If we can be on top of our inboxes to make sure there is nothing pending from ourside it would be great.

Downside
Like everything in this world this has its downside too. Many of us have become addicted to e-mail and sms that we fret when nothing comes in! Though these are async modes of communication some of us treat it as synchronous communication and send a reply immediately irrespective of the time of the day. Prompt replies are fine but certainly not warranted after office hours? Worse we expect such behavior from others also.

So, if we change our work approach to reduce synchronous communication, do more work alone, use e-mail effectively and meet only when necessary for the duration planned it would improve our productivity at least by 20%. This will also help in work-life balancing our workdays and weekends!

Will it work? Why not? After all we go to client locations and work their work hours (usually 8-5 except for a few days when deadlines are breathing down the neck) and have time to do grocery shopping, watch NBA/EPL in the evenings.

So, it is possible. Take some time. Think about it. And the change the way you work. tell me if it worked or if it didn't.