📢 Announcement
Automatic Check-ins Reminder
Andrea LaRowe
I'd like to refresh everyone on the importance of our weekly and daily check-ins. We all know the simple purpose of check-ins – they replace status check meetings, create room for distraction-free days, and they make writing heartbeats a breeze. But the importance goes deeper.
Once upon a time, when 37signals was much smaller company, we had just a few people each doing programming, design, support, and ops. We all worked on a small suite of products, and our daily collaborative work was confined to just a few platforms like BCC and Github. Yet even then, at a company of 10 or 15 people, we relied on tools to help us work in the open. In/out and Backpack Journal were 2 early iterations of our current "what did you work on today" automatic check-ins, which were useful even at that small size.
It's the same now as it was then! We enjoy a work environment that's largely free of distractions like meetings. We trust each other to work on what's important, to own the quality of our work, and to take initiative. And working in the open serves to cement the trust we have in each other to make good decisions about how we choose to spend our workdays.
Jorge put it well in his recent Dev blog post:
Once upon a time, when 37signals was much smaller company, we had just a few people each doing programming, design, support, and ops. We all worked on a small suite of products, and our daily collaborative work was confined to just a few platforms like BCC and Github. Yet even then, at a company of 10 or 15 people, we relied on tools to help us work in the open. In/out and Backpack Journal were 2 early iterations of our current "what did you work on today" automatic check-ins, which were useful even at that small size.
It's the same now as it was then! We enjoy a work environment that's largely free of distractions like meetings. We trust each other to work on what's important, to own the quality of our work, and to take initiative. And working in the open serves to cement the trust we have in each other to make good decisions about how we choose to spend our workdays.
Jorge put it well in his recent Dev blog post:
Information radiation can look like a bureaucratic practice on the surface, but it is actually a protection against that... You can share lessons learned, struggles, unexpected turns, motivations, and, more broadly, how things move forward. No tool or automatic report can do that. Many people can benefit; you can help others and receive help. You favor making decisions based on how reality looks, which is an essential trait for any non-predictable endeavor such as software development. And ultimately, it brings clarity to what you do...
As we approach the new year, let's please approach check-ins with renewed purpose and some clear requirements.
- Check in every Monday morning to set your week ahead. Like kickoffs and heartbeats, you should make an effort to accomplish everything in your Monday check-in.
- Check in at least twice per week at the end of the day to describe what you've worked on, with some context about why you're working on it. Why is it important, what does it serve, and what are some decisions you've made. Give everyone at the company a snapshot of the value you're finding in your daily work so they can appreciate it too.
- Try to avoid bulleted lists that don't give any context or convey anything interesting about what you're working on.Â
- Do to try to post links or screenshots, tell a story, and share your successes and challenges.
- Remember that writing your check-in is work. Set aside some time at the beginning of your week and end of your day to focus on writing them. Don't think of them as an afterthought but as part of your daily schedule.Â
Any questions, please drop them below or ping me or your manager. Thanks for reading!