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727 articles on async work, handoffs and coverage. Page 5 of 31.
- Hours and Boundaries
The 22:00 Message: How to Write It Without the Team Reading It
Writing late is fine. Sending is not. Separate composing from delivering, and ask the record before you write to the person at all.
- Coverage
When the Person Who Knows Everything Is on Leave
"Ask her when she is back" defers a fortnight of work one item at a time. Sort what waits: most of it is retrieval, not judgement.
- Async and Meetings
Replacing the Daily Standup Without Losing the Information
A standup produces state, blockers, and incidental conversation. Only the third needs a call. Here is what to write instead.
- Interruptions and Context
Reducing Slack Interruptions on a Team of Twelve
On a twelve-person team the channel becomes a support desk with one unpaid operator. Four steps in order, ending with the one that works.
- Onboarding
Cutting New-Hire Ramp Time: the Questions They Are Afraid to Ask Twice
New hires do not ask twice. They guess, and you find out in review. Ramp time is set by how cheaply a question can be asked.
- Ops Operating System
A Weekly Ops Review That Is Not a Status Meeting
Two thirds of a typical ops review is updates read aloud. Move them to a pre-read, refuse to repeat them, and limit the agenda to off-plan items and decisions.
- Coverage
Covering for Someone on Leave Without the Backup Doing Two Jobs
Naming a backup usually means one person holds two workloads. Split it: the backup handles decisions, the record handles questions.
- Async and Meetings
Becoming Async-First in a Team That Runs on Slack
Slack is not the obstacle. The expectation of instant replies is. Three changes make async stick, and the third one decides the outcome.
- Across Time Zones
How Much Overlap Does a Distributed Team Actually Need?
Most distributed teams need two to three hours of overlap per seam per week, not per day. Here is what overlap is genuinely for.
- Interruptions and Context
Context Switching: the Cost Is in the Questions, Not the Tickets
Work-in-progress limits fix the switches you planned. The expensive ones are involuntary: someone asks where a thing is and you drop what you were holding.
- AI at Work
AI Tools Added to the Workload. The Teams That Noticed First.
Productivity falls past four AI tools, and an hour of checking follows every hour saved. Production was never the bottleneck. The waiting was.
- Hours and Boundaries
Your Engineer Logged Off at 18:00. Here Is What to Do With the Question at 22:00.
Three bad options at 22:00: message them, guess, or lose the morning. Almost every night question is retrieval.
- Onboarding
Remote Engineering Onboarding: the First 30 Days of Questions
Remote onboarding is a question-asking problem, not an information problem. A four-week plan built around who answers what, week by week.
- Ops Operating System
The Operating Rhythm for a 200-Person Company in Three Countries
A cadence on paper describes a tenth of how a company coordinates. Design the meetings around decisions and the gaps between them around answers.
- Coverage
The Vacation Handover That Means Nobody Messages You at the Beach
A handover stops the questions it anticipated. Four sections, one page, explicit decision limits, and a record that can answer the question you did not predict.
- Async and Meetings
Async Communication: The Practices That Survive Contact With a Deadline
Async practices collapse under deadline pressure, and that is information. Three survive, three do not.
- Comparisons
Before You Buy Enterprise Search, Check the Problem
Enterprise search and knowledge tools solve different problems. A quick way to tell if yours is finding docs or answering while owners are away.
- Across Time Zones
Managing a Team Across Three Time Zones Without Anyone Working Two Shifts
Three time zones has no shared hour, so the manager becomes the relay. Sort the cross-seam traffic into status, decisions, and escalations.
- Comparisons
One Question, Two Answers: A Twin and a StandIn
The same question, answered by an AI twin and by a StandIn. A conceptual side-by-side of how each behaves, and where the real difference shows.
- Comparisons
AI Twin, AI Assistant, or Stand In: A Plain Comparison
AI twin, AI assistant, and StandIn get lumped together. Here is a plain comparison of what each claims to do and how they actually differ.
- Interruptions and Context
What Interruptions Cost an Engineering Team, and Where They Come From
The cost of an interruption is the recovery, not the two minutes. Where interruptions come from, and why two people absorb most of them.
- Comparisons
Glean, Guru, and the Question Neither One Answers
Glean searches your tools, Guru organizes knowledge cards. A fair look at both, plus the question neither one answers while the owner is away.
- Async practice
Right to Disconnect Is a Policy. Coverage Is a System.
A right to disconnect protects your time on paper. Whether the work waits or gets covered is a separate problem, and only one of them is solved.
- Async practice
The Handoff Checklist That Takes 90 Seconds
A copyable engineering handoff checklist you can fill in under two minutes, so the next person can pick up your work without waiting for you.
Your team’s week, answered from the work.
If this is your team’s week, see what a StandIn does with it.