Identify value

Like everything else we do in agile software development, the notion of “value” is at the centre of this shift to asynchronous work as well. Let’s get one thing straight - asynchronous work is not the goal. It’s a means to an end: an end that wholly synchronous ways of working cannot achieve.

Benefit	How does asynchronous work help?
Better work-life balance	People can choose the work hours that work best for them, giving their personal life the time it deserves.
Higher inclusion	Timezone barriers removed. Introverts and non-native English speakers can use the safety of tools and writing to communicate freely.
Improved onboarding and knowledge sharing	Regular, clear writing and curation helps build up referenceable team artefacts for knowledge sharing and onboarding.
Communication at scale	Everyone cannot be in every meeting. Writing allows your team to share information at scale. It’s referenceable and fast to consume.
Time for deep work	When you don’t have unnecessary meetings on your calendar, you can now free up large chunks of time to get deep, complex work done without interruptions.
A culture that defaults to action	Being wrong at speed rather than waiting to be perfect, shifts the focus on getting things done. If something’s wrong, we can refactor and adapt.

The first step in introducing change on your team will be to align on these elements of value. The more of these benefits the team cares about, the more they’ll be open to change.