Forcing functions are constraints that nudge people towards desirable behaviours. In this article, I discuss five forcing functions to promote effective meetings.

The “whiteboard effect” refers to a deep work phenomenon that occurs when two or more people problem solve together in spells of intense focus. The presence of this effect doesn’t mean, however, that we must always be in whiteboard mode.

When people can identify themselves in all their interactions with each other, it reflects a high psychological safety. But just like a failing test can be invaluable in coding, you need the test of “anonymous contributions allowed” to test if your psychological safety is indeed as high as you’d like it to be.

If you adopt asynchronous work, everyone should be able to work on a schedule that’s convenient to them. But that may not be the case from day one. You must first build your deep-work muscle.

Group chat can be both a helpful tool and a distraction in the workplace. While suitable for quick exchanges and simple information sharing, it falls short for more important discussions and tasks.

I think sending meeting recordings instead of meeting minutes is inefficient and insensitive. You can do much better.

Before you start tweaking individual practices on your team from a remote and async-first perspective, you need to zoom out and examine your work and communication protocols. So, in this post I want to share with you a few fundamentals you need in place, so you avoid the hyperactive hive mind.