Note: This came from an internal talk I gave at Fastly. I no longer have the slides, but I still have my notes.
How to Information
Writing code, designing, and planning all depend on having the right context. It may technically be someone else’s job to provide that context, but waiting for it can leave you blocked until it is too late to be useful. Find the information you need, work out what it means, and share it with the people around you.
Decide where your attention goes
Not every message needs the same attention. If you are leading a project, its main channel probably deserves frequent checks. A channel with peripheral updates can wait for a designated catch-up time. Build this around your actual role instead of treating every notification as equally urgent.
Prune the inputs
Once a month, look at what you are ignoring. Unsubscribe from email threads you never read. Leave or mute Slack channels that no longer affect your work. A huge unread count makes it harder to notice the one update you actually need.
Respond in public
Plenty of Slack channels are streams of status updates with no response beyond a few emoji. Ask a question in the channel when an update affects your work. The answer then helps everyone, and the person who posted it knows somebody is paying attention.
Tell other teams what you need
I often tell another team what information I need and how I would prefer to get it. Sometimes they offer different data because my first request is not feasible. Sometimes we discover that nobody tracks it yet. Either answer is more useful than each team silently assuming the other knows what to send.
Listen past the delivery
Useful information does not always arrive in the tone or format you would have chosen. The delivery may even be rude. Separate that problem from the content long enough to understand what the person is trying to tell you.