Communication Guidelines

These guidelines are here to help you to manage your workload and communicate effectively within the company. Throughout every working day, Human Made generates a large amount of content across our Slack and P2s, as well as communication via video and voice calls.

You do not need to:

  • keep up with absolutely everything in the company, just those things that are relevant to your role
  • read scrollback for every Slack channel you are in, just stay up-to-date with your active projects
  • respond to messages outside your working hours
  • respond instantly to messages as they come in, or expect immediate responses to your messages. Communicating asynchronously does not mean communicating in real-time.

You should:

  • use Slack statuses to tell your colleagues what your current status is (e.g. on holiday, afk, deep work)
  • turn on email notifications for posts/comments on P2s that are relevant to you.
  • turn on email notifications for posts/comments on Updates.
  • if you’re deploying code, please be online and in Slack.
  • conversations of importance should be had on a P2. If it’s already happened on Slack, write it up for a P2.
  • let your squad know if you’re not going to be available during your normal working hours or if you are taking a holiday.
  • keep your holiday information up-to-date so we are aware of your availability.
  • if you come across documentation that is incorrect or out-of-date, take a few minutes to update.
  • if you spend more than fifteen minutes with a configuration process, write it down and make it available to help others.
  • on GitHub, only follow the repos you are interested in. You can turn off automatic repository watching in Github by going to Settings > Notifications.

Screenshot 2016-05-31 16.23.50

  • if you are travelling with other humans, please share your phone number and be available to them.

There is separate detailed guidance about when and how we expect you to use Slack and P2.