Those who work on MS Teams - what's the etiquette around group chats?

[Visho]

I work mostly remotely with people in different offices across the UK and some based in India so meetings take place on Teams and discussion happens on Teams chats through the day.

We have various group chats for different purposes. For example, if I worked at a zoo in the polar bear enclosure, I'm in a group chat for the "polar bear" team and a group chat for all the "arctic animals" teams and a group chat for the "deadly predators" teams. Obviously other people have group chats I'm not in too.

People often complain about the number of group chats and while I do agree it's a lot, what's even more annoying is that people don't actually use them properly.

For example, one person is working on upgrading the cooling system for the arctic animals. As a member of the polar bear team she knows it works well for us but needs to make sure it wont have any unexpected negative consequences for the other animals.

She suspects the penguins particularly might have an issue with it so approaches the leader of the penguin team. After discussion they figure out some adjustments and it gets implemented. At this point nobody except this one woman form the polar bear team and one man from the penguin team have any clue what's going on.

The cooling system get set up and arctic hares turn out to be terrified of it (something the arctic hare team could have told her if she'd asked before doing it). A person from that team speaks directly to the woman who did this piece of work so that the speed can be turned down.

The next day everyone is puzzled about why it's suddenly going slower and now it's caused another problem somewhere else.

(Please, I know I'm getting my animals wrong and penguins and polar bears don't live together but I picked a zoo analogy and it's admittedly falling apart).

The point is that has she had all of her discussions in the arctic animals chat, we could all have contributed and got a cooling system that works for all of us. It would have been very quick and wouldn't require repeated changes back and forth.

I feel like almost all of my problems at work are related to not having a clue why somethings been done because it didn't directly concern me at the time so nobody bothered mentioning it.

Then a week later it's broken something I am working on, and had someone mentioned it earlier I could have told them why it would cause a problem before they did it.

This seems to be a massive part of the culture. Often I'm having a discussion in a group chat and the person starts messaging me privately on the side.

So often someone will message me asking me directly a question about polar bears or asking if a proposed change will impact our polar bears. I'm not anywhere near senior and I often wonder why they've picked me. Why can't the questions be visible for all of us in the polar bear team? Sometimes I think it will be fine but someone more experienced tells me there's an issue I didn't foresee.

So what actually happens is that I get asked and then have to check with everyone else and we all start playing this weird messenger game of passing things on which could be solved by using the group chats.

The defence is that there's too many group chats and that they don't want everyone getting bombarded with information but there's enough different group chats that it's basically always possible to only send it to the people it's actually relevant to.

I seem to be in the minority in being bothered by this. I do see people annoyed that they're not aware of what's going on but nobody who seems to want to stop the culture of only ever messaging one person privately.

I'm wondering what the etiquette is at your work place if you do use Teams and if perhaps I've just got unrealistic expectations.

It's my first job of this sort as previously I had jobs where I was working mostly alone and didn't need a constant back and forth and communication with other colleagues in this way. So I am willing to accept I'm in the wrong here.

I don't think this is a tTeams issue, it sounds like bad project management tbh

What to do about it depends on your seniority imo

Don't have any advice but I loved the analogy.

I'd expect all discussions about the cooling system (I like the extended analogy!) to be in a specific Team called Estates Enhancements with channels below it. This would include senior staff from all the Arctic Animals groups.

Standalone chats would be more for minor updates about the bears having mackerel instead of trout today because of a supplier issue and who wants to go for lunch today.

But yes, it's really hard to keep everyone in the loop on everything they need. It relies on every so often someone piping up to say "shouldn't X be consulted about this?".

Lots of things wouldn't be relevant to all the Arctic Animals group and some info will get missed.

We have a whole team chat and then break off more specific chats. But outside our own team is a nightmare and lots of duplication. With 15k colleagues and teams across a wide area and number of buildings (no one knows how many!!!) it’s bonkers. But we’re nhs so just have random meetings… my nhs experience is very different to the smaller organisation I previously worked for where we got shit done.

Sounds like you need stakeholder/internal comms management and change management systems so that people know who they need to consult about what and have the appropriate mechanisms to do so. And perhaps a list of approved teams groups which people are encouraged to stick to unless there's a good reason, e.g. a short term project, for setting up a new one.

I don't often say this but I think this would be one of the few occasions where you do actually need an actual meeting to include all those who might be affected by decision making!

I liked the analogy.

We have a team chat, a social chat, various project chats. However, the cooling system would have been mentioned in our weekly progress meeting and a request for anyone that had an interest in the project to get in touch.

As always, the first response nails it! Chats are for "chat" - no one should be making system amendments based on this, you need proper project management and audit trails.

Love the analogy though!

To keep it going
"What is the least disruptive time to experiment with the settings?" = suitable for chat.
"I'm going to change the settings from ABC to ANZ at 9am " = project management & audit trail

(Please, I know I'm getting my animals wrong and penguins and polar bears don't live together but I picked a zoo analogy and it's admittedly falling apart).

😂

From that basic description it sounds like the wrong people are getting given the wrong tasks to do. The Polar Bear team shouldn't be handling cooling, unless they have a clear understanding that there are wider implications than they've considered.

Projects being given to unqualified people who don't know who should be involved.

Agree that you need new decision protocols in place.

Though mostly I'm fretting about the poor anxious Arctic hares

We wouldn't use teams chats for the examples you've given. We use teams for very quick questions or notifications e.g. "WiFi in office x is currently down. IT are working on it." Or "there's some pastries left over from a meeting if anyone wants one".

We would use email in the examples you've given, as it's much easier to add people to an email conversation, and it sounds like the conversations you're talking about are business critical projects, not quick chats.

I agree - I love the way that having spent time in corporate environments I can absolutely picture the way this could all unfold.

I left corporate around when COVID arrived so was never beset by a group chat problem. However, a similar situation could arise with emails so I agree this is less of a group chat issue and more of a corporate culture/organisation/communication problem.

When conversations are happening piecemeal rather than with all stakeholders involved, this indicates to me an anxiety about what certain stakeholders might say.

For example: the person who is working on upgrading the cooling system for the arctic animals is invested in making a certain change, because these changes will keep the polar bears happy which will get her some sort of reward like a bonus. She is line managed by the All Bears Boss not the Arctic Animals boss so actually is not that invested in the other Arctic Animals that much aside from for office politics reasons. She will just not tell the Arctic Hares people about the upcoming upgrade because she has a niggling fear that they will block the upgrade and she will loose out on a bonus. That sort of thing.

Thank you everyone for the thoughts. It's been helpful to read the replies. I think there's a good point here that the issue isn't so much how group chats are being used and more about project management.

The reply about how the polar bear team member shouldn't be in charge of this task hits the nail on the head.

What happens is that someone from the polar bear team comes across the old, broken cooler and gets told to sort out a new one for everyone.

Ideallly there would be someone higher up who knows about all arctic animals who creates a clear list of requirements with input of leaders from all teams. Then it can be assigned to someone to be implemented and everyone will receive information about the new system.

Traditionally that is the kind of thing that would happen in my (weird remote zookeeping) industry but this workplace seem to be into a sort of experimental, everyone takes ownership over everything thing. I guess this is really the core of the issue.

Thanks again.

I didn't read your whole post because I got distracted and started applying to work in a zoo.

When conversations are happening piecemeal rather than with all stakeholders involved, this indicates to me an anxiety about what certain stakeholders might say.

For example: the person who is working on upgrading the cooling system for the arctic animals is invested in making a certain change, because these changes will keep the polar bears happy which will get her some sort of reward like a bonus. She is line managed by the All Bears Boss not the Arctic Animals boss so actually is not that invested in the other Arctic Animals that much aside from for office politics reasons. She will just not tell the Arctic Hares people about the upcoming upgrade because she has a niggling fear that they will block the upgrade and she will loose out on a bonus. That sort of thing.

This is so good that I wish I'd added this in. This is exactly the kind of thing happening all the time and I hadn't really thought about it like this.

I agree with pp there's not enough clarity over roles and responsibilities. Particularly over who is the decision maker, who is the implementer and who needs to be consulted.

Given that, in the analogy (which I LOVE) then the correct thing IMHO to do, given this affects all artic animals would have been to post non the arctic animals chat:

"FYI there needs to be an adjustment made to the cooling system because x to do y on z date. I checked with the penguin team. If anyone else thinks this will affect them, let me know by Monday so I can get input".

Yeah so what you have is piss poor Management and ethos.

@Visho In that case yes I would say it is office politics, fear and lack of transparency. In your shoes it depends your goals. If you want to get good at the office politics game, think about (for example) which teams not to keep informed about your projects or initiatives if they are likely to thwart your prospects of getting a bonus.

Whilst I find such politics fascinating and always have (I was always good at spotting this sort of thing which I suspect is why I was able to read this into your post) I never felt comfortable compromising animal welfare and ultimately left corporate.

If you want to get a bonus, learn not to tell the arctic hares team about your plans, but get buy-in from the penguin team, and improve the wellbeing of the polar bears and the penguins. Then make a PowerPoint showing how much you have improved arctic animal ticket sales and get promoted, ideally moving to a different department. Rinse and repeat in the reptile house.

Don't you people have actual meetings?

This really has nothing to do with group chat etiquette and everything to do with poor project management and stakeholder management. If something is going to affect the environment of all Arctic animals, someone managing the implementation should be taking responsibility with checking whether it's going to work with the SMEs for each Arctic animal. And they should be doing it by getting on ye olde phone/videocall or in the same room to make sure people understand what's being discussed.

Group chat is for light banter, reminders, and sharing documents that have been formulated through actual conversation.

This is a project management failure. If you try to corral people into communicating in certain places it will never happen. The PM need to ensure all stakeholders are spoken to and relay it to the team or prompt that person to put it in the chat.

Sadly the reason this is unfamiliar to me is that I came from a career where it was just me and the hares and while I do fancy the money that comes with this corporate path, the thought of the frightened hares would keep me up at night and so I may not be cut out for playing the politics game.

Also I think you could write a really good book about this. "How do survive the corporate zoo" (title can be workshopped)

No advice but am very sad that was an analogy. I started off thinking what a wonderful job you have!

We only have a few group chats, streamlining definitely helps.

I think a lot of companies rely on Microsoft Teams instead of human management. Our working practice is a lot poorer since the introduction of Teams which was championed by a junior staff member and was supposed to make our lives magically better and more efficient.

All it does is complicates everything and you get paranoid keeping the green tick happy.

I agree with that meme that said instead of banning Tik Tok they should ban Teams and make everybody happy.

In your zoo analogy I agree with pp, good leaders will uphold proper lines of roles and responsibilities, and if they did, any Teams or WhatsApp breakaway splinter groups would be good for gossip but would have little or no impact on clear working objectives.

I really love this analogy @Visho and the advice / analysis you’ve had so far is so good that I’m saving this thread.

Your writing style is earnest and funny too. 🙂

Though mostly I'm fretting about the poor anxious Arctic hares

Me too 🥺