In this article we outline the practical steps to work more asynchronously within your organisation. While it is an obvious tip, one of the starting points for many organisations is to ensure that everyone is trained and confident with the tools and technologies that enable asynchronous working.
Make achievable changes a bite at a time
To get started understanding the different degrees of asynchronous working, you might like to use the ‘5 levels of autonomy’, and determine the level that best describes your current work practices and where your organisation is aiming to be. It may not be necessary to aim to be at the highest level.
Set some realistic targets as you implement. For example, reducing the number of hours spent in meetings over the next 3 months or improving project execution time. Determine the types of asynchronous practices that achieve your goals.
Getting the Ways of Working & Mindsets in place
Beyond the tools and ‘rules’ of how work is done, it is critical for teams or organisations to establish and maintain how they work together. Below are a few suggested practices that will help build effectively asynchronous working:
1) Establish the ‘rules of engagement’ - be clear about team expectations of practices such as where documents are stored, how decisions are made, and how and when meetings are conducted
2) Define clearly about outcomes, resources, due dates, and other non-negotiables
3) Agree on the behavioural standards of the team such as how we raise issues, manage disagreements, or clarify misunderstandings, and address mistakes or overdue deliverables
4) Be explicit about how team members should collaborate, including when and how people work, which channels, tools and platforms are used for different activities and communication – what types of materials or information can be shared asynchronously, when may live conversations be best, and how team members can adapt to one another’s style. Often it is useful to have a team session at the start of a project or activity to agree these ways of working.
5) All the wisdom about effective leadership styles is even more important to effectively lead teams working asynchronously, especially when they are remote or hybrid teams.
Tools to enable Asynchronous Work
Typically, a key opportunity to be more productive and improve the quality of work is to optimise existing tools to asynchronously collaborate on shared documentation. Below are some real-life examples that we have implemented in our own ways of working.
Messaging
To improve asynchronous working and ensure inclusiveness across teams, we recommend making a concerted effort to have conversations in the right place. When you’re discussing a project, post the messages in a channel corresponding to that project – rather than 1:1 conversations between team members. We have also found sending links to shared documents saves time, eliminates version control issues, and further enables speedy asynchronous working.
Project management
While Teams has a nice ‘to-do’ board, we use this only for managing smaller, discrete pieces of work. For larger, more complex projects, consider a formal project management application with richer functionality. Tools such as Monday, Asana, Wrike and others make the allocation and tracking of tasks, dependencies, and overall project status a breeze. These tools enable project teams members to assign and track tasks thus creating clarity about what everyone needs to do – without a meeting, call or messaging and allowing everyone to act more quickly.
Document sharing
Whether you are a business that uses Microsoft Teams/SharePoint/Outlook combo, Google, or other platforms to manage and share documents there are great opportunities to co-create content with fewer and more effective meetings to review and discuss. We work on shared documents daily with our clients; working synchronously and asynchronously. Our practices include ensuring edits are visible to all with tracked changes; automated version control and calling out points for discussion resulting in more efficient review cycles.
Strategy and content development
Developing a significant document or strategy is quite easily done asynchronously. We’ll often have a kick-off conversation, then start collectively building up a piece of work. Utilising the ‘comments’ feature and tagging fellow contributors allows specific and direct feedback or questions to be raised and addressed rather than having to wait for the next team meeting. Regardless of tools, applications, and practices, typically it is critical to have a well-defined plan at the start of any work.
For some other tools that help foster better asynchronous connection, see the list here
At Adlerian Consulting, we feel strongly that asynchronous working will unlock much more enjoyable, engaging and rewarding work for many people while providing personal flexibility and more balance. And while technology and tools will enable this, it is through deliberate decision-making and the most effective behaviours of leaders and team members that are equally important to realise the benefits of asynchronous working.
We’re excited to watch this space continue to develop and enjoy working with organisations as new practices are developed and embedded. If you would like to get started but feel overwhelmed by the prospect, we are happy to share our experiences and research.