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How We Collaborate

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” - African Proverb

Meetings

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Internal Communication

Working in a distributed team comes with a number of challenges, particularly with respect to communication. The need for clear and effective communication channels is paramount to our ability to work well as a team.

Unios uses chat clients, email and video calls when working with our global team members. Within the Digital Products team, most communication happens in chat.

Chat

Although Unios as a whole uses Microsoft Teams as its standard chat client, the Digital Products team primarily uses Slack for technical (i.e. programming-related) discussions. There are three main reasons for this:

1. Slack has better integration with developer tools that we use (CodeStream, GitHub, Vercel);
2. Slack’s thread-based-topics, and the ease with which new topic rooms can be created and archived make it particularly effective for feature-based discussions; and,
3. Slack more easily enables ‘ChatOps’ workflows (e.g. using Hubot), which is an efficiency we are striving for

Although having two separate chat clients may seem confusing at first, our team’s approach is really quite simple:

• Use Slack for all questions and discussions that are about technical implementation or are directed to another member of the team
• Use Microsoft Teams for everything else

Video Calls

Some discussions are better handled in a video call. Here are some general guidelines to follow when joining a video call - not all of these will always apply, but they are all worth considering before starting:

1. Sound-check up-front

   It’s best to make sure that everyone can hear each other and address any sound problems at the very start of a call, so spend the first few moments confirming this.

2. Use headphones

   This helps to eliminate echoes. There is nothing worse than having to hear yourself echo back from someone’s speakers :/

3. Prepare an agenda

   Not all meetings require an agenda, but they can help to keep meetings on track and ensure that things aren’t forgotten.

4. Consider recording the meeting

   This is particularly useful if some people are not able to attend the meeting.

5. Be aware of your surroundings

   Before joining a video call, take a moment to consider your surroundings. Firstly, we don’t want to disrupt other people who are working in the same area. If possible, book a room to take your meeting in, or for ad-hoc catch ups, move to an area that is away from ‘focus work’.

   Secondly, remember that there is always the possibility your video stream is being broadcast to a screen that many people can see (including clients visiting the office).

Project management

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