The Essential Guide to Asynchronous Communication

The internet has revolutionized asynchronous communication and enabled its effectiveness. Here are some examples of asynchronous communication:

• Email
• Messenger apps
• Status updates (on project, team, or organization levels)
• Weekly announcements (new hire introductions, company-wide announcements, etc.)
• Standups over chat apps (Slack, etc.), especially for distributed software development teams
• Intranets (Yammer, etc.)

Here are the many advantages of asynchronous communication:

• Increased Flexibility: People using asynchronous communication methods do not need to respond immediately to any message, email, or chat they receive.
• More Thoughtful Communication: With more time to think about a response and reflect on all potential scenarios, you’re able to communicate more thoroughly, honestly, and insightfully.
• Better Documentation and Transparency: By automatically archiving your communication, asynchronous communication methods allow you to save comments, messages, emails, etc. That way, you can access your documentation at any future point in time, which further eliminates communication redundancy and improves productivity.
• Happier Workers: When people have more control over their workday and the ability to choose their working hours, they are generally happier. Such autonomy empowers employees to structure their time to fit their lifestyle. When managers and coworkers don’t require or expect an immediate response, workers can focus on their own work and respond at their convenience. In addition, happier workers have less stress and, consequently, tend to enjoy better mental and physical health.
• Increased Productivity: Because team members don’t need to focus as heavily on responding to emails or chats, they have more time for complex, more valuable work. Members of your team are also able to get more work done in less time, which allows them to spend larger chunks of time on this more important work. Because they’re focusing on the work that matters — rather than digging themselves out of their email — productivity increases.
• Better Planning: With less stress and fewer distractions, people are able to plan their workdays more thoughtfully and allot more time to the work that matters.
• Fewer Time-Zone Issues: Asynchronous communication levels the playing field for a geographically diverse base of employees. Now, people can send, view, and respond to messages whenever they are available, which makes it easier for companies to retain employees and expand the hiring pool.
• Increased Autonomy and Agency: When someone is able to structure their schedule according to their needs, they feel more empowered and in charge. And, when they have more control over their life, they’re more loyal, they stay at the company longer, and they produce higher quality work.

Here are the disadvantages of asynchronous communication:

• Increased Risk of Misunderstanding: If people are communicating at different times without holding in-person conversations, they reduce their opportunities to ask questions and fully understand requests.
• Loss of Emotional Context: When you don’t communicate face to face, you lose the elements of personal connection and body language that provide larger emotional context.
• Longer Resolution Times: It may take some extra back-and-forth communication to resolve an issue. To combat this challenge, you can schedule a synchronous call or meeting to iron out any confusion or misunderstandings.
• Fewer Brainstorming Sessions: If each of your team members responds at a different time because each of them has a different schedule, you’ll have difficulty holding regular brainstorming meetings. Without these sessions, you lose the chance to collaborate on new ideas, solutions, and more.
• Resistance to Adopting New Communication Methods: Employees and companies are almost always resistant to change; sometimes, people find it hard to fully grasp and implement a new concept — especially one like asynchronous communication, which can be very foreign to some organizations. Client-facing employees in particular may have a harder time using asynchronous communication, because they always need to be available to their customers.
• Decrease in Documentation: The key to making asynchronous communication successful is to make sure that your team engages in consistent documentation. However, people don’t always document everything they do or discuss. If your team members don’t capitalize on the power of a centralized documentation tool, they’ll find asynchronous communication more challenging.

Leaders are the driving force behind changes in an organization, especially when those changes involve the way team members communicate with one another. To create a fully functioning asynchronous organization, take into consideration the points below:

• Eliminate required work hours, specifically those in the office. 
• Emphasize trust and accountability within your organization.
• Set team-wide expectations regarding the response times for things like email, chat apps, and more.
• Implement a DRI (directly responsible individual) model of management.
• Emphasize transparency and use communication tools that support it.
• Have specific ways to communicate if an urgent need arises.
• Give team members flexibility, and let them know it is okay not to be available all the time. Be sure to model this behavior for them.
• Promote strong, effective communication, which is the backbone of asynchronous communication.
• Evaluate employees based on their output, not on the number of hours they spend at their desk.

To maximize the benefits of asynchronous communication across your team — and even across your organization at large — apply some best practices to your approach. Here are some helpful tips to keep in mind:

• Make all important information available and provide it up front.
• Ensure that your writing is clear, precise, and thoughtful.
• To maximize productivity, block your day, so team members know when you’re available and when you’re offline.
• Batch your email and correspondence time into a couple of sessions per day, and set up an autoresponder for the times during which you plan to be inactive on email.
• Share your communication hours and preferences with team members, so they’re aware of when you’ll be most responsive.
• Send all notifications, chats, and emails with context in order to give team members enough information to act on a message.
• Avoid needless @ mentions and direct chats.
• Work to reduce your reliance on synchronous communication tools. Try removing these tools from your phone, so you don’t feel pressure to respond to messages at all times.

To learn how asynchronous tools can help your team be more productive, visit our ultimate guide to asynchronous communication and collaboration tools.

As you adopt these asynchronous forms of communication and start to put them into practice, you’ll also start holding asynchronous meetings. To create the most effective meetings using this new type of communication, apply the following best practices:

• Share an agenda beforehand, so meeting attendees are aware of discussion topics and can add notes. 
• Use a central portal and share it with team members, so everyone can easily upload and collaborate on notes, schedules, progress updates, and reference documents. 
• Implement a project management system that enables you to build workflows, so team members can track their daily tasks across multiple projects.
• Utilize an asynchronous video tool that allows you to share messages with as many people as necessary. Doing so will enable everyone to review a video or revisit a slide deck at their convenience.
• Be honest about whether or not a meeting can occur in writing. If you deem a meeting necessary, make sure there’s a concrete meeting agenda with action items.
• Hold a post-mortem meeting to determine whether a synchronous meeting was successful or whether you could have handled it asynchronously.
• Encourage everyone to speak up during asynchronous meetings.
• Set guidelines for the type of feedback and input that should occur during a meeting, and keep the meeting in check and on track as it progresses.

Download Asynchronous Meeting Agenda Template

Microsoft Word | Smartsheet

Use this helpful template to set up an agenda for an asynchronous meeting. List all the essentials for your meeting, including attendees, overall objectives, a minute-by-minute meeting schedule, and the meeting lead’s contact information. 

This template ensures that your asynchronous meeting will be an effective use of everyone’s time. 

Download Asynchronous Meeting Minutes Template

Microsoft Word | Smartsheet

Use this helpful meeting minutes template to stay organized and keep everyone on the same page during your asynchronous meeting.

Designed specifically with asynchronous communication in mind, this template allows you to list meeting attendees and the meeting agenda, track decisions and issues, and brainstorm with action items, so everyone can stay current concerning the plan as it moves forward.

Although asynchronous communication is becoming much more popular, there are instances in which synchronous communication makes more sense. 

Synchronous communication is better for the following:

• Shallow, less serious work (e.g., responding to emails or chats, arranging logistics, or scheduling status meetings)
• Team building, casual hangouts, or socializing across teams and organizations 
• Situations that are urgent and require an immediate response (e.g., when a server is down)
• Collaboration or brainstorming sessions
• Team retreats, celebrations, or coworking situations
• Troubleshooting 
• First-time meetings with external parties or vendors 
• Any topics that are emotionally sensitive and require a face-to-face discussion

Asynchronous communication is better for the following:

• Complex, intense work that requires more time and energy (e.g., researching a solution to a problem, writing a launch plan or campaign brief, or creating a presentation deck)
• Company discussions and updates
• General feedback 
• New team member introductions
• Detailed technical conversations 
• Project discussions

To help you determine whether you should use asynchronous or synchronous communication in a particular situation, consult this helpful checklist.

Do you need to document it for later reference? (Y/N)
Does it require an immediate response? (Y/N) 
Do you consider it urgent? (Y/N)
Does it require thoughtful feedback from others? (Y/N)
Does it require substantial time and dedication? (Y/N)
Does the situation require a face-to-face meeting? (Y/N)
Does it include emotionally sensitive material or topics? (Y/N)

Download Asynchronous vs. Synchronous Checklist - PDF