#DROPBOX PAPER PROJECT MANAGEMENT HOW TO#

But it can feel threatening over Slack or email, where we can’t read facial expressions or vocal tone. Use emotionally intelligent languageĪ simple question like, Why did you make that decision? can come across as perfectly benign in person. Does everyone know what I mean by OKR flywheel?Īnd if you don’t understand something, be sure to speak up.The next time you utter, “W e’re iterating on phase 3 of our PSO for the Q4 roadmap-we’ll need to leverage our OKR flywheel here,” do your listeners a favor by asking: People are afraid of looking silly, so they won’t always admit if something you’ve said stumps them. Keeping it simple will make you sound smarter. Avoid jargon (leverage, utilize) and $100 words (grandiloquence, erudition).Instead of trying to impress readers with grandiloquence and erudition (ahem), challenge yourself to: That’s why many famous authors, like Hemingway, write at a 5th grade reading level. Short, simple sentences are easier and arguably more fun to read. Write for beginners (even when you’re talking to experts) This will make your writing more logical. Start headlines with all verbs or all nouns (but not both). Make your doc easy to digest by breaking up big paragraphs into smaller ones, and using bold headers and bullet points. Respect your readers’ time by being concise. TL DR (too long didn’t read) is the bane of corporate communication. Help people remember your point by getting right to it. Journalists tell us to “put the bottom line on top” (BLOT). “Please leave feedback by 4 pm Friday” is better than, “Look forward to your feedback.” Get clearīefore you start writing, consider, “What’s the one thing I want my reader to take away?” or, “What’s the one thing I want them to do next?” Try to be precise (without overwhelming them with details) and include a clear call to action.

At worst, they make you wonder, “Is my work bestie mad at me?” In a Virtual First world, writing to be understood-not just heard-will be more important than ever. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a confusing doc, too-long email, or terse Slack message.

#DROPBOX PAPER PROJECT MANAGEMENT HOW TO#

Here’s how to speak and write in a way that gets your point across, even when you’re across the globe. So we’ll have to go out of our way to be clear, warm, and inclusive. When most of our interactions are mediated by screen and text, it can be easy to misinterpret each other. Virtual First means going async by default-solving problems with collaboration tools like Dropbox Paper, or over email or Slack, before reflexively scheduling a meeting. How to shift your mindset for Virtual First.You can visit the rest of the Virtual First Toolkit here: This piece is about communicating effectively in Virtual First. We’re publishing this Virtual First Toolkit, and we’ll practice, test and add more content as we learn. We wrote some principles based on our experiences so far and and included resources about adapting to Virtual First work. This is new to us and we’re still learning how to do it well. At Dropbox, we’re going Virtual First, which means we’ll be mostly distributed with in-person gatherings for team collaboration (once it’s safe to do so).

The rules and expectations around when, where, and how work happens are all in flux.

Dropbox paper project management