The DIRECT framework for status updates in remote teams

Published 2018-08-07 by Jochen Lillich

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

We’re a busy distributed team here at freistil IT. That makes steady communication both essential and challenging. Continuously sharing your work progress is important for reaching business objectives. Giving people insight into your personal situation strengthens team relationships. This practice is called “narrating your work” or “Working Out Loud”. However, it’s not easy to strike a balance between the polar responses of “Seriously? Why didn’t you share that earlier?” and “Gee, I really didn’t need to know that.”

At freistil IT, we’ve dedicated a Slack channel named #direct for intentional status updates.This name is an acronym that provides us with a framework for the important aspects of our work that we’re encouraged to share: Decisions, Insights, Results, Emotions, Contacts and Troubles.

My blog post on this topic got me invited as a guest on the 21st Century Work Life Podcast. In episode 170, “Working Out Loud in Remote Teams”, I explain our practice in detail:

Jochen talks to us about being intentional about sharing on distributed teams, the fact that you need to do more of it, more consciously, than you might imagine.

I’m happy that I got to share a practice that might help many remote teams to communicate more effectively!

Listen to the podcast right here:

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