Sync Up without Standups

Nobody likes meetings. Harvard Business School Professor Nancy Koehn found that over 50% of employees think that half the meetings they attend are unproductive. So why do we keep having them and why do they fail?

The Problem with Meetings

We have meetings ostensibly to share status updates and communicate feedback. The problem is that people don't listen to each other when they’re anxious about what they’re going to say. They also interrupt each other in discussions, are easily distracted and can’t retain all the information that’s shared.

On top of that, meetings themselves are logistically a pain. Meetings impose huge interruptions into people’s workflow and schedules. They’re also difficult to schedule, especially if your team is remote.

Sync Up Your Team

I Done This syncs up the team and makes communication easy without the pain of meetings. Instead of a daily standup, everybody on the team just replies to a daily email reminder with what they’ve gotten done. The next day, read the digest or check out the team calendar to keep up to speed with who is doing what.

Start a Conversation

It’s also easy to communicate feedback asynchronously with I Done This. Comment on each other’s entries to ask questions and share feedback on specific issues. Everyone can have their say and the discussion will be recorded for the whole team to review.

Build a Record

I Done This can make the meetings you  do have better. You’ll have a written record of progress to work off of, and you’ll have discussed some issues beforehand in your comments. Building off of this foundation will make your meetings more efficient, effective and decisive.

Buffer Substitutes Standups with I Done This

Many companies have successfully replaced daily standup meetings with I Done This. Buffer, for example, used to have a daily team Skype call where everyone had three minutes to talk.

As Buffer’s remote team grew, they had to contend with different timezones, their meetings grew longer and they couldn’t ask questions for fear of interrupting someone’s allotted three minutes. Buffer replaced their standups with I Done This, reducing their hour-long meetings to one email a day and making it easy to ask questions.

Pipedrive Ties a Remote Team Together with I Done This

Another remote company,  Pipedrive, uses I Done This to bridge the gap between departments and enhance all-hands meetings. Different departments use chats, standups or various project management tools internally, but everyone connects daily on I Done This.

It only takes them 30 seconds to write their daily I Done This email, but it gives everyone a basic understanding of each other’s role and contributions. Every quarter, Pipedrive digs up their I Done This record for an “all-hands” meeting, ensuring that the whole company is on the same page.

Whether you use it to replace meetings entirely or supplement them,  I Done This helps your team communicate the important daily stuff - updates, questions, feedback - with just an email a day. That means your team can stay in sync without interruption and make the meetings you do have matter more.