¬ just serendipity 🍀 (not just serendipity)

(via) Cassidy Williams:

Something that that a few of my teams have done well is introducing themselves asynchronously. It can be a hard thing to do! When you’re on a fully remote team and you’re seeing everyone’s face on Zoom for the first time, it’s a little nerve-wracking to figure out how to present yourself, how to “bring your whole self to work,” and not be a total weirdo.

What my team at GitHub does (and what I’ve seen at a few other orgs now, it’s catching on!) is we have a repository of “Human User Guides” full of details about each other.

User guides (go/user-guides) are a great way to introduce yourself to your team at work. Cassidy notes:

— Time zones/availability — Communication preferences (Slack vs Zoom vs email vs phone vs something else) — Things folks might misunderstand about you — Things everyone should know — How you prefer to get feedback — Things that you like to talk about, work-related and non-work-related

The list is already quite comprehensive, however I would also add:

• Ask vs Guess preferences
• MBTI

One caveat is maintenance¹. Information could easily get outdated. It’s possible to write your user guide in such a way it represents a snapshot of your preferences at the time you wrote it, OR as a living document that keeps evolving as you grow. Adjust expectations clearly. One way to do so is to add a date to it in case you anticipate information easily getting out-of-date therein.

Also, why stop there? Set up oneshot 1:1 meetings with your immediate team members, and then with your extended ones. It doesn’t matter whether these meetings are in-person or virtual. Set up serendipitous meetings with folks outside of your team². Some people call these lunch ninjas, others call these coffee donuts. Not everyone may end up accepting your invitations, but that’s perfectly fine! Just move on.