Stop Direct Messaging at Work. Instead, Create Open and Effective Communication Streams

Keep the lines of communication to a minimum

Photo by Pixabay

I have noticed over the past three years as a developer on my current team that I’ve become the go-to person for questions, observations, and help for my team. At first, I loved being known as the person who knew the answer, but I soon realized I was repeating myself, leading to extra context switching and time consumption.

I recognized that I was creating siloed knowledge by discussing solutions with single team members or product managers. I have realized that I needed to move these conversations to more public forums to help build a more connected and efficient engineering team.

Private messages prevent communication from spreading across a team, slowing knowledge transfer. If teammates are not in sync, then misalignments are guaranteed to happen, which can lead to bugs, incidents, and downtime.

This is a great infographic on the importance of proper communication. Daniel Priestley shows how direct communication can lead to unnecessary complexity. When any of these lines are…