How We Communicate

Async First

We believe in asynchronous communication as the default. A message that can be read and replied to at the right time is almost always better than a meeting that interrupts everyone simultaneously.

Meetings are not inherently productive. They can bring clarity — but they can waste just as much time when called without a clear reason, no agenda, or when the outcome could have been a well-written message. The skill isn’t knowing how to run a meeting; it’s knowing when one is actually needed.

The test: if this can be written, read, thought about, and replied to without needing everyone in the same room at the same time — it should be.

When a Meeting Is Actually Warranted

Meetings earn their place in two situations:

A decision needs real-time input from multiple people — competing constraints, unclear trade-offs, or something where the discussion itself creates the answer
True brainstorming — forming ideas together in real time, where the collision of perspectives is the point

Everything else — status updates, progress reports, requirement clarifications, feedback on work — belongs in writing.

If you’re calling a meeting

Write a clear agenda before sending the invite. If you can’t write the agenda, you’re not ready to call the meeting.
Set a time limit and mean it.
Schedule the meeting in Zoho Calendar, add all attendees, and make sure email invites are sent — don’t just share a link on Cliq and expect people to add it themselves.
Share any context, documents, or background that people need beforehand.
Ensure someone is assigned to take notes before the meeting starts. See Meeting Notes.

If you’re attending a meeting

Unless it’s a true open-ended brainstorm, come prepared. Think through the topic in advance, make notes, form a view. The goal is to arrive with 80% of the thinking done so the meeting resolves the remaining 20% — not to do all the thinking out loud together. Prepared attendees make shorter, better meetings.

Tools

Purpose	Tool
Async communication	Zoho Cliq
Audio / video meetings	Zoho Meet

Daily Check-ins

We do not have daily standups as meetings unless the project demands it. Instead, every team member posts a daily async check-in on Cliq in their project channel.

Format:

What did you work on today?
What will you work on tomorrow?
Are you blocked? If yes — tag the right person.

This keeps the team informed without pulling everyone into a call. It also creates a written record that’s useful for the Product Lead and Engagement Owner.

Product Leads: check-ins are not a formality to scroll past. Read them. If someone’s off-track, blocked and no one responded, or their “tomorrow” doesn’t match what the plan says — that’s on you to follow up.

Protecting Deep Work

One of the most damaging things you can do to a colleague in deep work is interrupt them with an unscheduled message asking for a quick call.

Do not send “Quick call?” on Cliq.

When someone is in the middle of focused work — writing code, designing, thinking through a problem — a sudden context switch doesn’t cost a few minutes. It can cost hours of productive time to recover from. The interruption is rarely as urgent as it feels.

If something genuinely needs a conversation:

Schedule it properly with enough notice
Write a clear, specific meeting title — not “Sync” or “Quick chat”
Add a description with context so people can arrive prepared
Pick a time that works for everyone, not just you

If something is actually on fire — a production incident, a client escalation in the next hour — say that explicitly. “The client’s staging environment is down, we have 30 minutes before their demo” is an emergency. “I had a thought about the design” is not.

The No Hello Rule

Do not send a message that is just “Hi” or “Hello” and wait for a response before saying what you need.

This forces the other person to stop what they’re doing, respond, and then wait for your actual question — doubling the interruption for no reason.

❌ Don’t do this:

Message	Why it’s a problem
“Hi…”	The other person can’t reply without knowing what you need. Now you’ve made them respond twice — once to your “Hi”, once to your actual question.
“free ano…”	“Free depends on what you need” — they can’t answer that without knowing what’s coming. You’ve just created a pointless back-and-forth.

✅ Do this instead:

Message	Why it works
“Hi Anand, quick question — are we supporting Google SSO in the first release or is that phase 2?”	One message, one read, one reply. Done.
“Chetta, quick thing on the auth PR — the token expiry is set to 24h but I think it should be 1h for security. Can I change it or is there a reason it’s 24h?”	Context included. They can think and reply without a preamble.

The other person can read it once, think about it, and reply when it suits them. That’s async done right.

Cliq Status Updates

Set your Cliq status so people know what you’re doing without having to wonder why you’re not responding.

This is a small habit with a big return: someone sees your status, understands the context, and either waits or knows they need to reach out differently. No guessing, no “are you there?”, no unnecessary anxiety about an unanswered message.

Status	Emoji	When to use
Focus mode	🎯	Deep work — coding, designing, writing. Don’t interrupt unless urgent.
In a meeting	🗓️	On a call. Will respond after.
Out to lunch	🍱	Away for a break. Back shortly.
On leave	🌴	Out of office. Check who’s covering before messaging.
Travelling	✈️	In transit. Responses may be delayed.
Unwell	🤒	Sick day. Do not expect a response.

Keep it current. A status that says “Focus mode” at 6pm tells people nothing useful. Clear it when you’re done, or use Cliq’s built-in expiry so it clears itself automatically.