Asynchronous Work

"Asynchronous Work"

My Job Here is Done™ Transcript (for general use only – machine-generated and it may not be accurate.) 

Dave (00:00) You know, my mom doesn't text.

Kelli (00:03) Okay, so what.

Dave (00:04) Kind of makes it hard to be spontaneous? You know, just say hello or to check in.

Kelli (00:08) Yeah, I know, I know. Well, did you ever try to teach her?

Dave (00:12) (chuckle) Yeah, my mom, she's like, she doesn't want to change. She's set in her ways. She can't see the need. Says, you know, it's okay just doing it the old-fashioned way, whatever that is.

Kelli (00:21) I couldn't live without texting, could you?

Dave (00:23) I know texting was so annoying for me when it first appeared as a feature.

Kelli (00:28) Really?

Dave (00:28) Yeah, no, seriously, I would text someone and then literally stare at the screen going, well, well, type something back.

Kelli (00:39) Those three little dots in the thought bubble must have drove you nuts.

Dave (00:42) Oh, my God, I'm so over it now. I literally have 16 different texts going on with people right now. The use of texting was a game-changer for everyone ... But my mom. (sound of a text alert)

Dave (00:56) I didn't silence my phone. Sorry.

Kelli (00:58) Well, well.

Dave (00:59) Oh, you're always yelling at me for that ... What?? ... You're the one texting me? Saying, let's do a podcast on. Yeah.

Kelli (01:09) (laughing) Yeah

Dave (01:11) Are you nuts? dot, dot, dot. What do you mean? Come on. you wrote "Texting is a great way to introduce the concept of asynchronous work."

Dave (01:22) Hmm.

Kelli (01:23) Who'd of thunk it!

INTRO (01:25) Hi, I'm Dave, and I've been starting and running businesses all my life. And I'm Kelli working for the man like a dog for decades. And you are YOU!  The driven career professional clawing your way up the ladder of success. Maybe running your own business. Well the next 20 minutes or so is just for you. Welcome to.

Chuck Fresh (01:45) My Job Here Is Done.

Kelli (01:49) Welcome. I'm Kelli and I'm as happy as a smiley face emoji to have you listening today.

Dave (01:56) And I'm Dave and before we figure out how texting relates to the growing popularity of an asynchronous workplace and what the eggplant and peach emoji really mean.

Kelli (02:07) NO, we are not!!

Kelli (02:09) Please subscribe or follow us on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss any new episodes or bonus material we publish on career success and business growth.

Kelli (02:17) If you like. You can also interact with Dave and I personally at our website MyJobHereIsDone dot com and on social media at my job podcast.

Dave (02:27) Asynchronous work or simply phrases like we work async are new to a lot of people.

Kelli (02:33) Have you heard the term asynchronous work before? Because if you haven't, don't worry. Most people don't know about this, but it's a fast-moving trend in business, especially since COVID pushed the world to remote work.

Dave (02:45) Right. And I for one, am glad for remote work. And so is Kelli Yeah, it really changed and is changing how we work and how part is what we're going to talk about today.

Kelli (02:57) Dave mentioned the term asynchronous, which we know is the opposite of synchronous, where synchronous simply means existing or occurring at the same time in a work setting, synchronous work refers to the output of people's efforts to make a product, write code, provide a service or whatever, and require steps to be taken in an orderly and predictable fashion.

Dave (03:19) Synchronous work also requires group communications, frequent meetings and a lot of context switching back and forth between different tasks. Usually kind of odd feeling, and it's usually due to poor planning. It relies on people being in one place or time zone for convenience and it's pretty inflexible by design.

Kelli (03:39) Think of synchronous work like an assembly line to get a finished product. Each person on the line has to do their job in order, one after another after another. If one thing in that chain of events fails, the output stops.

Dave (03:52) Oh, and that reminds me of a very classic episode of the TV program "I Love Lucy." And this was like way back in 1952. You remember this one, right?

Dave (04:04) This is where Lucy...

Kelli (04:05) I Wasn't born yet, by the way!! 

Dave (04:11) Okay. If you like old TV, black and white TV shows and just amazing comedy, The I Love Lucy Show with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz was great. We're talking about the episode where Lucy and Ethel are working on a production line in a chocolate factory.

Kelli (04:28) It was great!

Dave (04:29) The chocolate balls would come down this conveyor belt and Lucy had to be quick enough to pick each one up as they passed by and put them in a candy box for shipping. Yep. Lucy, as usual, was struggling with this, but she and Ethel were getting it done. Well, the owner wanted her to go faster. So what did she do? She sped up the conveyor belt, which overwhelmed Lucy. So she's stuffing these chocolate balls into her pockets because they're coming by so fast. In her mouth. Anything not to miss one. It was one of the funniest things on TV. We'll put a link to a YouTube video of it in the show notes, after you're done listening, go have a look. Because it was really quite funny.

Kelli (05:10) It was hilarious. And that's an extreme example of synchronous work. Another example of synchronous work is when a group of employees work together at the same time. They typically share the same work hours and make themselves available to one another so they can ask questions, get help. You know, the normal day at the office, right?

Dave (05:28) And if I need Kelli to help me with something during the workday, she's right there for me. I don't have to wait much. And as long as she's not busy, my work progresses in order.

Kelli (05:40) If you have regular work hours that align with the rest of your team and when the day is over, you're all done and so is everyone else, then you're working synchronously.

Dave (05:49) This feels like a natural way to do things in order because we're very, very used to it. But what happens when we work out of order on our own schedule? Is that even possible?

Kelli (06:01) Yes, it is. Welcome to the world of asynchronous work or async work. It's where your employees work on their own time without the expectation of immediately responding to others. Seems kind of odd, doesn't it?

Dave (06:14) (text sound) It's just another text. I'll get back to them later. I'm busy doing a podcast now.

Kelli (06:18) Texting versus calling is a great example of the difference between synchronous and asynchronous. When you call someone on the phone, you have the expectation that if they answer, you will talk back and forth in a synchronous fashion in real time about whatever, and perhaps come to an immediate conclusion. You're stuck on that one call, and that's your priority right now. You had little to no choice in it.

Dave (06:42) Compare a synchronous phone call where a colleague is asking for help to an asynchronous text message. Everyone expects you to answer the phone right away, but today no one expects you to answer that text right away. It's just the way it is. You can answer the text based on your setting your priorities. You can put it off. You can wait a while before you get back to it. You can be out of order based all on your current priorities. You're being asynchronous and still getting your job done. A phone call is always synchronous, but a text message can be very asynchronous.

Kelli (07:21) Starting to see the difference. Let's look at how one of the Internet's technologies - online forums - proved asynchronous work ... Works. Let's say you start a thread on a forum and we're talking about any forum here Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and ask 'I'm looking for people to give me an opinion on our new logo' - you type - what does this new logo mean to you?

Dave (07:45) Now, before the advent of online forums, to get that question answered, we put together a focus group. We'd have to schedule a conference room. We'd find people who are interested in helping us with the question, perhaps arrange ahead of time to pay them or provide transportation to our office, then coordinate more time for everybody to show up and then hold a meeting and ask our question. Very synchronous. And it could fail if anything got out of order.

Kelli (08:12) Right. And that process is very slow, very complicated, very risky, very expensive. There’re so many steps that have to be followed in order to make that focus group happen.

Dave (08:23) But not if you do the focus group asynchronously by posting that question in our example here in a forum. You get the same result without all coordination and all the risk. And it's the coordination that takes time and money. Respondents answer your question when they can. Results flow in as people have time on their own schedules. The interested people participate, the uninterested or unqualified people simply ignore it.

Kelli (08:52) Right. And you and all of the people on the online forum are working asynchronously. This is just one example of the natural shift from a synchronous work style to an asynchronous work style. I know if you take a few minutes and think about it, you'll find other examples of this shift in some of your work habits or in your own business.

Dave (09:12) But that's not the big shift we're talking about here. That was just a spot example. We have seen that in many cases you can adjust the vast majority of your company or department into an async mode and become much more efficient and more competitive as a result.

Kelli (09:30) In the next few minutes, we're going to present some ideas and concepts for you to consider. We want to make you feel that 'aha' moment or caused you to think more about this approach to enabling a workforce. We can't give you the recipe for converting to a mostly async workplace in this podcast because every business is different. But we can help you think about the benefits and structure of async work.

Dave (09:52) We think this style of work habit is coming fast, so it's our suggestion, let’s all get ahead of the game! So, for review. Asynchronous work refers to the practice of working on a team, on a project, or in a department that does not require all members to be available to each other at the same time or contemporaneously.

Kelli (10:15) When you work asynchronously, your employees can maximize their productivity without waiting for others to complete tasks. A key point here is this asynchronous work relies on creating processes and documentation that allow team members to work autonomously while providing those team members with the trust and authority they need to do so.

Dave (10:36) You'll find that you replace common asynchronous communications, like phone calls and meetings with documentation. Now, more on that later. One of the challenges and also one of the huge benefits of installing an async practice is that employees are given and need to accept more responsibility and ownership for their part of the work. Well, guess what? 80% of your team wants that anyway, right? They're begging for it. There's a reason why the phrase "Just leave me alone so I can do my job" is so popular.

Kelli (11:12) Async work can help solve that cry for help, but it requires an agile and efficient pipeline for quality output that's free of waste and inefficiencies. You might know that a lot of Agile, LEAN, and now async work models have been inspired by the Toyota Production System's three 'Moos' methodology, which started way back in 1962. And it's even more popular and used in a myriad of ways today. As a refresher, let's look at three important tenets of the Toyota production system.

Dave (11:43) The three MOOS!

Kelli (11:51) MOOS!

Kelli (11:53) Yup, the three MOOS. All of which are Japanese terms. They are Muda, Mura, and Muri.

Dave (12:01) By knowing these terms and what they mean. You can add this philosophy as you plan your async workplace changes. Don't worry, this is super easy and a little thought-provoking. The first moo Muda refers to any activity that adds waste or consumes resources without creating value for the customer. Examples are people's time spent waiting on others, redoing finished work due to production flaws rewriting code because requirements were ill-defined or poorly communicated. To solve a Muda problem, simply look for areas anywhere in the business that waste time, stock or inventory space or travel or waste employee effort. I know you can find some. Just think about it.

Kelli (12:46) Next is Mura, which references unevenness or inconsistency that can amplify inefficiencies like scaling up too fast to try to meet a predicted customer demand that never occurred. Having poor workflow documentation that causes people to change behavior and workflow from one task to another, to solve for Mura, watch your processes and look for things like 'hurry up and wait' scenarios and anything else that doesn't look smooth to you. And the final moo ...

Dave (13:15) MOO?

Kelli (13:17) Moo!

Dave (13:22) Is Muri, and it will be most familiar to you as a leader or as an employee. Muri translates into the ill effects of overworking and burnout within your talent base. Muri are tired and stressed employees that are tasked with doing way too much or tossed around between different tasks. They're burning out right in front of you!

Kelli (13:46) Hey, if there is an epidemic out there in business, it's the Moo Flu!

Kelli (13:52) The MOO FLU!

Dave (13:53) You can solve for Muri by solving for Mura and Muda first, and then looking for ways to allow your team members to own more value-based responsibility to allow them to be autonomous when they work.

Kelli (14:07) And those three MOO's, Muda, Mura and Muri form the foundation for asynchronous work.

Dave (14:14) Now that we can see a difference between synchronous and asynchronous work, it's a good time to stop and give you a practice idea that you can implement immediately as both a test of async in your business, and it'll produce some valuable information that you can use right away.

Kelli (14:30) As you think about the three Moos. Think about them in every area of your business. You likely don't even realize some of the waste and inefficiencies you have as a leader because you're in the thick of things. This broad exercise will help get a few people together from different areas of your company, not leadership, but the guys and gals who do the daily work for you. Pick a mix of your rock stars and a troublemaker or two.

Dave (14:54) Yeah. You want to get that guy or gal that's always, like, just complaining or ...

Kelli (14:58) is a Naysayer.

Dave (15:00) Get them involved in this because they really do have good information. You just need to kind of like walk through the 'bull' in order to get there, right?

Kelli (15:08) Ask them on their own, to produce a document, a report showing what they think are areas of waste, inefficiencies and overwork there are in the business, and...

Dave (15:17) Make sure that there is a deadline date, and that the deadline date is clear.

Kelli (15:21) Ask them to do this together. But with no meetings, no zoom, no slack, no scheduled updated calls, and have each person responsible for their own thoughts and ideas. The only collaboration tool to be used is a shared doc that updates in real-time that all of the team has access to, like Google Docs or Office 365 Word online.

Dave (15:44) Are you seeing what we're doing here? You're taking away things that seem to make work more efficient, like meetings and calls and scheduling collaboration. But what you're really doing here is you're setting people free, free to take ownership of perhaps your first async effort.

Kelli (16:03) By removing all of the customary tools that in most cases are hidden. Mura. You are essentially forcing a "work on your own schedule" effort where the team will collaborate, but they do so on their own terms in a single place, the shared document, which is also the source of truth, the holder of notes and the ideas on the project.

Dave (16:23) I.e. the documentation that we were talking about earlier, which is so important when you implement async work and that document that they were working on all together. That is also the final product at the end of the task.

Kelli (16:39) This is super-efficient and it puts the responsibility on each person to contribute in the clear for everyone to see. It's also self-policing. If there's a slacker in the group, it will become immediately apparent and the group will handle it without you as leadership, even knowing about it, which means you waste less time dealing with Mura too!

Dave (17:00) They'll eat their own young. (laughing) The team will naturally prioritize on an individual basis, not as a group. And we bet you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results. Give it a try.

Kelli (17:13) About now you're saying to yourself, okay, I get it, but I can't do async work in my business. We're too transactional in nature or I run an assembly line. We have to work in order. And guess what? You're probably right to think that way.

Dave (17:28) Yeah. In some cases, the general business model must be kind of synchronous to work, or it can't be easily changed to work less serially in nature. But we challenge you to look deeper into the specific methods and procedures and processes that you use to get to your business's ideal output. Whatever it is, many of those processes and methods can be made async, with the result being greater efficiency, better team morale, less cost, and clear improvement in your otherwise synchronous output.

Kelli (18:04) (Slack tone sound effect heard) You're seriously checking Slack as we record this podcast?

Dave (18:08) Well, yeah, I know that we hit a logical break point in the recording, and I know that I can just easily edit this out. So, my priority right now shifted from this to checking on other things in my day. It kind of just feels right for me.

Kelli (18:22) Okay, but in doing so, you're stopping me from my work right now in recording this podcast. Why? To make a point.

Dave (18:30) You know, actually, you just made a point. Thank you. You and I are working synchronously to record this podcast right now. We're doing it in a fashion we're used to. We both have to be here together, no matter how painful that is (laugh), both at the same time to do this podcast. However, I personally feel like I can take a break right now and check my other priorities because I do the editing. But you don't want to take the same break. We seem to have a conundrum here.

Kelli (19:02) Well, to you, it seems efficient, but to me, it's now wasting my time.

Dave (19:07) Get it? You just can't decide to adopt an async behavior on your own or you'll piss off Kelli (laughing) like I just did or somebody else's around you.

Kelli (19:16) Yeah. You're, like, on strike two now, buddy. Tread carefully. But, you know, he's right. Adopting async processes requires the entire team to get behind it.

Dave (19:27) You first need to identify the areas of your organization that can adapt to an async discipline. Looking at finance as an example, I found a ton of efficiencies in that department that can convert to async, but you got to be ready to stop old practices like 'we only pay vendors and bills on the third Tuesday of every month'. You need to be more flexible to allow some async flexibility.

Dave (19:54) We're both hear in the CFO yelling!! "But you'll screw up my cash flow!!" Right? Nope. We can figure that out. Don't let old-fashioned practices stop you before you even get started.

Kelli (20:08) Most programing teams can and should work async. You just have to stop thinking serially and look at the work in modules.

Dave (20:15) Sales and marketing really benefit from an async mindset with a little coordination on only time-sensitive points. Both of these departments can virtually exist scattered all over the planet, in every time zone imaginable.

Kelli (20:29) Does a remote workforce make async work methods easier to put into practice? Well, you'd think it does, but that's just the convenient illusion of not seeing people in the office helping you with the answer.

Dave (20:40) Thank you COVID!

Kelli (20:41) You can adjust to an async method no matter if you're all in one room or if you're scattered around the world.

Dave (20:47) Hey, have you heard of GitLab? Many of you in tech probably have. GitLab is a very popular DevOps platform.

Kelli (20:56) And maybe we should explain what DevOps is. DevOps is a set of practices, tools, and a cultural philosophy that automate and integrate the processes between software development and I teams.

Dave (21:09) Yep. Software developers use it routinely, but you don't have to be in that sector of the business to use GitLab. I put a link in the show notes for you, and no, we are not affiliated in any way, but I know the platform well and you should check it out. The real reason I'm pointing out GitLab is for their publicly available and extremely well-written async work documentation. It's awesome, and it's what I think is a good first read for anyone interested in learning more about implementing an async discipline in your company. The link to the document is also in the show notes.

Kelli (21:45) The GitLab doc we're referring to lists six benefits most companies realized very quickly after adopting an async mindset. They are asynchronous work provides autonomy, empowerment, and agency. Next, async work increases efficiency and boosts productivity.

Dave (22:03) It does.

Kelli (22:04) Async work is more inclusive.

Dave (22:06) People like that.

Kelli (22:07) Async work alleviates stress and supports mental health.

Dave (22:11) Yeah. Because you kind of work on your own, right?

Kelli (22:13) It encourages thoughtfulness and intentionality and lastly, async work bridges the knowledge gap.

Dave (22:20) And there are more benefits than just those. And some not even realized yet as async work is just getting traction. We think it's a mandatory career success move to learn as much as you can about the topic. COVID forced most industries and the vast majority of the world's workforce to learn to work remotely. It was actually the first step in preparing us for a widespread adoption of async methods, because when you sent your employees home to work, you started using async methods, but you didn't even know it at the time.

Kelli (22:55) The next step will be to study it and learn how companies are embracing it. The good news here is that there are plenty of resources. We highlighted GitLab, but Google is your friend here, too.

Dave (23:05) So take a look around. Think about this after you've identified areas within the business that can operate asynchronously, codify it, document the process, and start letting your talent base run free.

Kelli (23:20) Your competition will hate you for it.

Kelli (23:26) (text and Slack tones heard) ... Well, aren't you going to check on those?

Dave (23:29) Nope. They'll wait. I'm concentrating only on you right now, Kelli!

Speaker 3 (23:34) Okay, suck up!

Kelli (23:36) Thanks for listening today. We hope you enjoyed the story and the topic. We have dozens of these short, easy to listen to episodes available anywhere you listen to podcasts, just search for My Job Here Is Done podcast and you'll find us waiting for you.

Dave (23:50) Got your curiosity piqued. Looking for a little help? We have a number of ways you can work with us to help grow your career or improve your own business. Just head over to our website: My job here is done dot com.

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