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Communication Guidelines

At Timeless Biotech, we value clear, efficient communication. Our guidelines help us stay aligned, respect everyone's time, and make sure important information doesn't get lost.

Slack Etiquette

Slack is our primary communication tool. We use it for quick questions, announcements, and team coordination—but we keep it organized and respectful of focus time.

Channel Use

#general - Company-wide announcements - All-hands items - Items everyone should know about - Please don't post off-topic content here

#engineering - Engineering decisions and discussions - Deployment updates - Technical questions - Code review discussions - Incidents and urgent issues

#clinical - Clinical data validation discussions - Medical advisory team conversations - Provider feedback and issues - Data quality concerns

#ops-and-finance - Finance, HR, and operations discussions - Billing, payroll, vendor management - Hiring and recruitment

#random - Non-work content - Celebrations, life updates - Funny things, memes - Off-topic conversation

#help - Questions from anyone - Unblocking people who are stuck - Process questions ("how do I...?") - No such thing as a dumb question here

#incidents - Real-time incident updates - Automated notifications - Do not use for off-topic discussion - Follow incident communication protocol (see below)

#deployments - Automated deployment notifications - Do not post manually unless escalating

Best Practices

Use threads: If responding to someone's message, use a thread instead of replying in the main channel. This keeps the channel readable and groups related discussion.

Be respectful of time zones: We're distributed. If someone is in a different time zone, give them reasonable time to respond before escalating.

Use status indicators: Set your Slack status to show your availability: - Green (available) - Yellow (in a meeting, back in 30 min) - Red (heads down, do not disturb) - Airplane icon (out of office)

Don't @channel or @here unless urgent: These notifications interrupt everyone. Use them only for genuine emergencies or time-sensitive issues.

Avoid notification spam: Don't post the same question in multiple channels. Pick the most relevant channel and post once.

Search before asking: Slack has good search. Your question might already be answered in an old thread.

Include context: If asking a question, provide enough context that someone can help without back-and-forth. "How do I deploy?" is harder to answer than "I'm trying to deploy my changes to staging but getting an ECS error about container image. How do I debug this?"

Slack Don'ts

  • Don't share credentials or secrets in Slack, even in private channels. Use 1Password for sharing credentials.
  • Don't post confidential patient data or detailed healthcare information. We can discuss data at a conceptual level.
  • Don't use Slack for formal decisions that need records. Use email or your project management tool for decisions that need documentation.
  • Don't expect immediate responses. Slack is not a paging system. If something is urgent, use phone or escalate through your manager.

Email

We use email for formal communication, decisions that need records, and external communication.

When to Use Email

  • Decisions or policy changes that need to be documented
  • External communication (customers, partners, vendors)
  • Formal approvals or sign-offs
  • Anything that might need to be auditable later
  • Asynchronous communication for people in very different time zones

Email Best Practices

Subject lines: Be specific. "Engineering" is not a useful subject. "Deploy plan for menopause endpoint" is.

Keep it concise: Long emails are skimmed. Use formatting and bullet points.

Include action items: Make it clear what you're asking for and by when.

Use reply-all sparingly: Just because someone was copied doesn't mean they need to see your response.

Archive, don't delete: We keep emails for compliance and records. Archive when done.

Meetings & Synchronous Communication

Meeting Cadence

Daily Standup (Engineering) - 10-11 AM PT, 5-10 min - Monday through Friday - What we're working on, blockers, highlights - Async standup available in #engineering if you can't attend

Weekly Engineering Sync - Thursday, 2-3 PM PT - 30 min - Sprint planning, technical decisions, architecture discussions

Bi-weekly All-Hands - Every other Thursday, 3-4 PM PT - Company updates, milestones, hiring - Optional but encouraged

One-on-Ones - Weekly with your manager - 30 min, scheduled in advance - Career growth, blockers, feedback

Clinic Check-in (for relevant team members) - Weekly, time varies - Provider issues, customer feedback, support escalations

Clinical Advisory Meeting (monthly) - First Friday of the month, 1-2 PM PT - Medical advisory board, clinical data validation, study plans

Meeting Best Practices

Be on time: Respect everyone's schedule. If you're going to be late, message the organizer.

Be present: Close email, silence notifications. Cameras on for video meetings unless there's a good reason.

Take notes: For important meetings, someone takes notes and shares them in relevant channels or Asana.

Record if helpful: For large group meetings (all-hands, etc.), we record and share the link.

Question over comment: If you have a question, ask it. Don't wait for the perfect moment.

Agenda in advance: For meetings you organize, send agenda 24 hours before if possible.

Decline if you don't need to be there: If you're added to a meeting but don't think you need to attend, ask the organizer. We're all busy.

One-on-One Meetings

Your weekly 1-on-1 with your manager is sacred time. Use it for: - Feedback and coaching - Career growth discussions - Blockers and challenges - Personal updates (if comfortable) - Celebrating wins

Your manager should ask you: - How are you doing? (really) - What's going well? - What's challenging? - What do you need from me?

Standups

Our daily engineering standups are brief (5-10 min). Share: - What you completed yesterday - What you're working on today - Any blockers or help needed

Format: No need to unmute everyone. We go around the virtual room quickly. Raise your hand or unmute when it's your turn.

Incident Communication

When we have a production incident, communication is critical. Here's how we handle it.

During an Incident

  1. Immediately post to #incidents: "Incident: [Brief description]"
  2. Start a video call: Post the link in #incidents
  3. Assign an incident commander: Someone who owns communication and coordination
  4. Provide updates every 5-10 min: "Investigation underway," "Found the cause," "Implementing fix," etc.
  5. When resolved: Post a summary (time duration, impact, cause, and what we're doing to prevent recurrence)

Incident Communication Template

INCIDENT: [Service] experiencing [issue]
Time: [HH:MM] PT
Status: INVESTIGATING

Impact:
- [What customers/providers are experiencing]
- [Estimated affected users/data]

Updates:
- [HH:MM] Initial report received
- [HH:MM] Root cause identified: [cause]
- [HH:MM] Fix deployed
- [HH:MM] RESOLVED as of [time]

Action Items:
- [Postmortem scheduled for Friday]
- [PR opened for prevention]

Postmortem

After every incident, we do a postmortem: - What happened? - Why did it happen? - What did we learn? - What are we changing to prevent recurrence?

Postmortems are blameless. We focus on systems and processes, not individual blame.

Escalation Path

If something is urgent or needs immediate attention, escalate in this order:

  1. Your direct manager — Call, don't Slack
  2. Engineering lead (if manager not available) — Call
  3. On-call engineer (for production incidents) — See on-call schedule

For customer/provider emergencies: 1. Your manager 2. VP of Operations 3. CEO (if VP not available)

Never skip levels unless it's a genuine emergency and lower levels aren't responding.

On-Call Expectations

If you're on-call:

  • Respond within 15 minutes: Check Slack, read the incident, assess severity
  • Provide initial response: "I'm looking into this," "Escalating to [person]," etc.
  • Page if critical: Use PagerDuty to page other on-call engineers if you need immediate help
  • Stay involved: Provide updates to #incidents every 5-10 min
  • Handoff clearly: If you need to transfer to someone else, brief them and confirm they have all context

Being on-call is a critical responsibility. It's how we ensure our healthcare customers can count on us.

Documentation & Knowledge Sharing

We value written documentation because it: - Helps new people get up to speed - Creates an accessible record - Scales knowledge across the team - Helps us learn from incidents

Where to Document

Code: Docstrings and comments for complex logic Runbooks: Step-by-step guides for operational tasks (in this playbook or GitHub docs) Decision logs: Why we made a technical decision (in this playbook under Architecture) Incident postmortems: Lessons learned and preventative changes Asana: Task details and context GitHub PRs: Why we made a change

When to Document

  • After solving a problem that others might face later
  • After an incident
  • When documenting a new process or tool
  • Before going on vacation (so others can cover for you)

External Communication

With Customers/Providers

  • Response time: Aim to respond within 24 hours during business days
  • Tone: Professional, friendly, patient. Providers are busy clinicians.
  • Escalation: If a customer has a serious issue, loop in your manager or VP of Ops
  • No promises without checking: Don't promise fixes or features without checking with your team

With Partners & Vendors

  • Responses within 48 hours unless it's critical
  • Clear and professional tone
  • Get approval before making commitments

With Media / Press

  • Do not speak to media without permission from leadership
  • If contacted, say "I'll have our team follow up with you" and loop in the CEO or VP of Ops

Social Media

  • Don't speak on behalf of the company without permission
  • Personal accounts are fine for non-confidential discussion
  • Don't share company info (features, customer names, financial data, etc.)

Feedback & Iteration

We want to improve our communication:

  • If a channel feels cluttered, suggest splitting it
  • If meetings feel too long, propose time-boxing or agendas
  • If you don't understand a decision, ask for clarification
  • If something isn't working, raise it in #general or with your manager

Last updated: February 2025