When to prefer frictiony communication

We love things that are seamless. Especially in the software engineering world, where your daily vocation is to build tools that remove friction. I often see talk about remote-friendly communication, but usually the default state amounts to going all-in on an instant messaging chat application with frequent video meetings.

This has notable drawbacks - there are times when “frictiony” communication is a better async approach.

The default state of “async” communication

An issue occurs that perturbs the system. Something unexpected happened, maybe it was a bug in production. Maybe you heard some negative feedback from users or got an interesting feature request. Perhaps someone wants to pose a controversial technical choice. Often, the situation plays out like this:

  • The initial event is broadcasted to a large channel in a chat app like Slack
  • A bunch of people stop what they were doing and voice their opinions
  • Someone posts an opinion that’s more convincing (this is often more thanks to the person it came from than the quality of the idea – quickly and effectively voicing strong opinions is a skill in its own right)
  • Nothing really happens, or maybe a meeting is scheduled for the future where the above conversation is mostly repeated

You can get by with this approach, but it’s pricey:

It’s expensive for everyone

People weren’t just sitting around waiting for this conversation to start - they were all most likely doing useful things with their time. Now they’re derailed in this conversation and need to reload context.

Lacks clarity

People love clarity (and hate uncertainty). When the primary tool for discussing complex issues is free-form instant message chat, there are no rules. It’s not clear who is supposed to be doing what, what the rules for contribution are, when the conversation is “done”, and what the path forward is.

Serves as poor documentation

I don’t know about you, but anytime I find myself using slack chat search as a form of documentation I end up feeling more lost than before.

It contributes to burnout

The above three points are more obvious than this one, but I consider this drawback the most important. When frictionless communication has become the default, it’s all to easy to for someone to fire off a quick DM to a group saying “we really need to do X.” X could be a five minute task, or a month long project. It doesn’t matter to the author – it’s still going to cost them five seconds of their time in either case.

But this creates an environment with an ever growing mental backlog of nebulous projects that are not only unstarted, but also have no clear path from which to start. The author has unintentionally placed a substantial mental burden on the rest of the team, who now can’t help but mentally track yet one more hazy project that has yet to get done.

Burnout is a complicated subject, but one clear pattern I’ve seen is a sort of chronic cognitive load. You start asking your brain to spend more and more resources remembering details that all have a dull anxiety flavor to them - they tend to be about things that aren’t done and likely won’t get done in any reasonable time frame. With so many of these brain never gets a break

The value in frictiony communication

Frictiony communication turns the tables. Instead of imposing a hidden cost on each of the consumers, it’s costly for the producer. It’s a good choice when the topic is complicated, the question is ambiguous, and the listeners are plural.

An example of frictiony communication is a 500-1,500 word proposal using a structured template. This is difficult to write. But there are so many benefits:

  • The cost itself acts as a forcing function to keep priorities straight. If the thing you’re proposing isn’t actually that valuable, then you’re not going to put in the effort to write the proposal. That’s totally fine. Sometimes doing nothing is the right call. In this case, we saved the whole team a bunch of time and energy by not stirring up a dead-end discussion.
  • It clarifies thinking. Writing is hard and forces the author to understand the goal and appreciate the thorny details that aren’t easily tracked in a DM thread.
  • It serves as clear documentation for future decisions.
    • Communicates clear responsibility. The person or group who wrote the proposal is responsible for curating the conversation, the listeners are responsible for reading it and approving.

On top of these benefits, the frictiony communication doesn’t have nearly the same contribution to burnout, and can actually make the team feel more in control of their environment.

It doesn’t have to be a beautifully written, polished document. Frictiony communication can take many forms. A well written ticket in a project management system can be suitable for self contained items. Sometimes a short slide deck is all that’s needed. The point is that there is no free lunch. Effective communication takes work, and in the cases discussed here, that work is best done up-front by the party initiating the discussion.