►
From YouTube: How GitLab uses Slack to build relationships in remote teams + DRIs, learning, and team cohesion
Description
Darren (GitLab Head of Remote) chats with Penny from Cobalt.io, discussing several topics as outlined below.
➞ How we reconcile a DRI's ability to make decisions with no explanation necessary, with the need for people to learn.
➞ How we use Slack expressly for informal communication to build bonds and relationships by expiring messages after 90 days and starting work in GitLab rather than a chat tool.
➞ How we build team cohesion by being intentional about structuring opportunity for teams to get together, and putting that on the people/culture group to structure and organize.
###
Learn more about Cobalt.io: https://cobalt.io/
###
Visit GitLab's guide to remote work: http://allremote.info/
Learn more about GitLab informal communication: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/informal-communication/
Learn more about GitLab DRIs (directly responsible individuals): https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/directly-responsible-individuals/#empowering-dris-no-explanation-needed
Learn more about in-person interactions at GitLab: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/in-person/
A
B
And
darin,
thank
you
so
much
for
having
a
very
schedule
so
just
wanna
preface
the
folks
that
dara
and
I
had
an
earlier
meeting
where
I
really
was
grateful
for
understanding
how
to
work
more
asynchronously
and
in
really
empowering
individuals
so
Darin.
My
first
is
actually
a
follow-up
question.
So
within
the
product
and
design
team,
I
really
love
the
idea
of
the
DRI,
the
role
and
responsibility.
So
as
I'm
socializing
that
with
the
team,
one
of
the
questions
came
up
so
at
cobalt,
one
of
our
values,
our
core
values,
is
humble
learning.
B
So
the
question
came
up:
where
hey,
we
understand
the
DRI,
there's
no
explanation
required,
so
everyone
could
collaborate,
everyone
contribute,
which
is
what
part
of
our
values
as
well.
But
if,
let's
say
a
comment,
is
not
recognized
or
responded
to
isn't
that
in
conflict
with
our
core
value
of
Homo
learning,
you
know
so
we
could
have
maybe
someone's
participating
and
added
a
comment
and
there's
no
response.
B
It's
just
one
of
these
things
that
we're
trying
to
figure
out
how
to
reconcile,
because
we
want
people
to
learn.
But
we
also
understand
that,
oh,
my
god,
we
can't
the
person
responsible
for
making
a
decision
to
move
quickly,
can't
constantly
be
explaining
you
know,
or
else
it
slows
things
down.
Yes,.
A
A
A
A
Let's
make
it
meeting
two
weeks
from
now
and
talk
through
the
reasons
why
so
and
at
least
giving
the
person
some
courtesy
of
I
gotcha,
maybe
I'm
going
on
vacation
I've
got
a
big
client
meeting
like
something
I
just
got
to
get
through
this
season
and
then
we'll
get
back
to
it,
but
it
needs
to
be
documented
to
begin
with.
Otherwise
that
can
never
happen.
The.
A
That
comes
to
mind
is-
and
this
is
actually
kind
of
a
real-life
example
on
my
end-
is
if
I
were
to
make
a
proposal
to
change
something
within
the
finance
section
of
the
gitlab
handbook,
I'm,
not
on
the
core
finance
team,
but
I
can
make
a
proposal
to
do
something
different.
The
code,
the
eventual
code
owner
for
that
section
of
the
site
is
the
chief
financial
officer,
but
if
the
chief
financial
officer
doesn't
have
the
bandwidth
or
the
space
or
whatever
to
respond
back
and
help,
me
learn
why
something
was
tweaked
or
accepted
or
rejected.
A
This
person
has
other
people
in
the
organization
controllers,
senior
directors,
directors,
managers,
there's
an
entire
finance
team,
and
so
how
I
would
go
about
it
is
we
have
a
finance
channel
in
the
slot
and
slack
forget
lab.
So
if
the
decision
was
made.
So
if
I
saw
that
you
know,
my
proposal
was
either
rejected
or
it
was
edited
and
then
merged
like
something
happened
to
it.
But
there
was
no
explanation
given
which
I
will
caveat.
B
A
Happens
because
people
are
very
thoughtful
about
the
proposals
they
make
so
for
the
most
part,
people
do
get
responses
because
they're
pretty
thoughtful
about
putting
forth.
But,
let's
just
say
hypothetically
it
didn't
happen.
It
would
be
totally
acceptable
to
drop
that
issue
link
in
the
finance
channel,
where
everyone
could
see
the
outcome.
Everyone
could
see
what
my
input
was.
Everyone
could
see
what
what
changed,
what
was
eventually
merged
to
reject
it
and
I
could
just
open
it
up
to
the
finance
team.
Hey.
A
Does
anyone
have
any
visibility
to
this
and
could
hop
on
a
call
with
me
or
explain
it
here
publicly
in
the
issue,
so
that
everyone
could
learn
where
this
would
fall?
Apart
is
if
you
had
such
a
small
team
that
there
was
there
was
not
any
additional
people
on
the
team
that
had
context.
However,
I
do
think
that
might
solve
itself,
because
if
you
have
a
team
that
small
in
theory
there'd
be
less
friction
getting
to
the
chief
financial
officer
anyway.
Does
this.
A
There's
not
a
whole
lot
of
layers
anyway,
so
it's
gonna
be
more
acceptable
for
anyone
to
be
able
to
have
direct
contact
with
the
executive
team
and
then,
as
its
scales.
You're
gonna
need
to
lean
more
on
the
people
that
come
into
there
or
that
probably
won't
solve
every
issue.
But
I
think
the
tweaked-out
would
make
there
is
is
create
a
culture
where
anyone
also
supporting
that
team
supporting
that
DRI
yeah.
B
A
Is
okay
to
ask
for
explanations
and
learning
from
that
team?
It's
not
seen
as
going
around
someone's
back
or
anything
like
that,
like
you
have
to
create
the
culture
of
we're
all
in
this
together.
That's
what
the
other
people
on
the
team
are
there
for
to
stand
in
the
gap
and
help
learning
happen
if
the
DRI
is
doing
something
else,.
B
Okay,
okay,
no,
this
is
super
helpful.
Thank
you
and
then
my
next
question
is
so
slack.
This
is
love-hate
relationship
and
and
and
one
of
the
challenges
that
we're
seeing
right
now
is
so
traditionally
cobalt
IO.
We
have
you,
know
several
offices
and
we
used
to
be,
but
you
know
folks
would
work
with
office,
although
we
do
have
some
distributed
remote
team
members
in
the
world
slack.
B
It's
it's
this
thing
where
okay,
we
want
to
work
asynchronously,
but
then
slack,
because
you
know
there's
this
Pavlovian
effect.
Where
something
happens,
it's
like
and
all
of
a
sudden.
You
know
people
feel
like
they
have
to
respond,
because
sometimes
let's
say
if
a
customer
issue
comes
up
clearly
Evan
was
monitoring.
So
it's
this.
How
do
we
do?
How
do
we
use
slack
effectively?
So
it's
not
this
anxiety-ridden
engaged
and
tool
that
will
allow
us
to
work
asynchronously.
Is
there
like
sort
of
like
a
good
best
practices,
you
know
or
helping
to
set
expectations?
B
B
A
A
B
A
Your
team,
it
doesn't
really
matter.
The
point
is
find
whatever
that
is
and
think.
Where
does
the
work
we
do
end
up
and
I
know
you
would
trial,
run
I
mean
just
say:
we're
changing
tiers
for
a
quarter.
We're
gonna
delete
messages
after
ninety
days
and
see
how
it
changes.
The
secondary
part
of
that
is.
It
forces
get
lab
to
think
about
slack,
primarily
as
an
informal
communication
tool
which.
A
With
people
on
a
relational
level,
so,
given
that
we
can't
use
psycho
were
like
what
the
heck
can
we
use
it
for
so
instead
we
create
topical
channels,
things
like
hiking,
music,
mental
health,
fitness
parents,
there's
a
parent
channel
where
people
can
just
talk
about
anything
related
to
parenting,
which,
in
the
current
state,
has
become
incredibly
useful.
Yes,
parents
from
all
over
the
world.
We
have.
A
We
have
people
in
67
countries,
so
they
have
very
different
approaches
to
parenting,
and
some
of
them
are
incredibly
like
their
epiphanies
to
other
people
and
other
countries
where
they'll
say
something
like
hey
I
have
my
kids
are
home.
We
need
them
to
do
this.
Like
they're
rebellious
I
mean
anything
they
can
have
an
actual
genuine
person
to
person
conversation
I'm
on
managing
kids
at
home.
A
That,
like
that,
doesn't
need
immediate
attention.
Oh
okay,
hinging
kids
at
home,
like
that's,
clearly,
not
the
most
urgent
thing,
it's
just
a
casual
conversation
that
you
can
jump
into
and
jump
out
of
and
there's
no
expectations.
Otherwise,
so
that's
the
forcing
function
of
using
slack
primarily
for
informal
communication
and
again
the
secondary
benefit
is
it
makes
people
feel
more
connected
to
each
other.
I
mean
now
we
have
these
parents
that
are
bonding
over
a
shared
experiences
that
are
happening
in
60,
plus
countries
all
over
the
world.
A
B
A
Have
client
service
people
on
our
team
yeah,
they
have
very
prescriptive
shifts
on.
They
have
to
watch
this.
That
is
their
literal
job,
to
watch
for
things
popping
up
immediately
and
solve
it
for
the
customer.
However,
that
is
not
everyone's
job,
so
we
document
this
in
the
handbook
of
these
people
have
to
treat
messages.
This
way
during
that.
A
That's
the
job,
but
other
do
not,
and
so
what
you're
running
into
is
they
kind
of
least
common
denominator
where,
as
a
team
that
has
to
respond
the
fastest,
then
kind
of
permeates
the
entire
organization?
Reckless,
like
that,
doesn't
have
to
happen.
There
may
be
an
components
of
your
company
that
need
to
respond,
but
there
are
other
components
where
not
only
do
they
not
need
to
respond.
They
probably
shouldn't
have
even
started
the
conversation
in
that
channel.
It
should
have
been
started
somewhere
else
where
it
could
be
discussed
in
a
in
a
healthier
manner.
A
B
B
Someone
did
bring
it
up
earlier
and
there
was
a
lot
of
I
think
because
we're
so
used
to
using
slack,
probably
not
the
right
way
as
a
documentation.
Thing
for
people
were
nervous
about
that.
But
I
could
see
where
you're
saying
it's
like.
If
you
don't,
then
it
makes
documentation
live
in
almost
too
many
places
for.
A
A
That
it's
siloed
across
the
organization
fragmented
it
doesn't
connect
in
a
meaningful
way.
It
needs
to
be
documented
in
a
single
place
and
yeah.
It's
breaking
that
or
implementing
the
90-day
rule
on
slack
is
going
to
feel
awkward
at
first
until
it
doesn't
and
then
you're
gonna
think
I
wish.
We
would
have
done
this
earlier.
A
A
I
mean
we
see
people
coming
to
get
lab
and
they're,
not
acclimated,
to
use
it
to
music
slack
that
way,
you'll
see
the
same
thing
happen
and
we'll
just
say:
hey
like
totally
get
it.
This
is
how
99.9
percent
of
the
world
works,
but
we
don't
do
this.
We
don't
want
to
start
the
project
here
because
all
traces,
the
history
up
at
the
archive
when
they
are
gonna,
be
gone
in
ninety
days.
So,
let's
started
over
here
after
one
or
two
of
those,
if
you
get
it,
it
becomes
seconded.
B
You
know,
especially
for
extroverts,
with
using
slack,
so
we
start
to
use
slack.
Also
for,
like
you
know,
cobbled
at
home,
you
know
or,
like
you
know
things
just
to
help
of
cooking.
However,
there's
something
slightly
different
in
team
cohesion.
So
that's
a
question
where
team
cohesion
I
don't
necessarily
see
it
as
a
social
aspect,
even
though
a
social
aspect
is
important,
you
know
to
build
that
team
rapport
so.
A
B
Does
I
guess
get
lab,
do
it
where
teams
feel
cohesive,
whether
it's
like
the
product
team
or
a
certain
engineering
pod,
or
you
know
you
know
the
people
team
like
how
does
that
cohesion?
How
do
you
guys
do
the
cohesion
in
a
remote
way
because
we're
all
the
things
that's
coming
up?
Cuz?
We
have
new
team
members
starting
to
join
and
it's
like
whoa.
You
know
how
do
we
do
this,
so
they
don't
feel
like
too
independent
or
too
untethered.
B
A
Is
definitely
a
journey,
it's
not
a
binary
on
or
off
thing.
This
is
something
right
on
and
when
each
additional
higher
you
have
to
work
that
much
harder
to
do
it.
I
mean
when
get
lab
was
50
people.
We
were
just
naturally
cohesive,
because
we
could
just
get
everyone
on
same
call
the
same
day
and
just
talk
about
whatever
and
1200
people
it
changes.
I
mean
we
had.
We
had
a
company
call
every
single
day
where
we
would
we
documented.
This
is
what
we
did.
A
A
Giving
of
the
company-
and
it's
one
of
those
things
that
you
you
can't
be
religious
about
it
we
just
went
over
to
the
people
group.
We
were
like
look
the
stats
say
no
one
is
engaged
in
this.
How
do
we
change
this?
To
make
it
better?
So
it
is
no
more
like
we
fundamentally
changed
it.
We
uprooted
everything
about
it.
We'd
still
do
a
call,
but
it's
more
segmented,
so
that
groups
are
smaller
and
they
can
have
tighter
bonds,
and
we
talk
about
different
things.
A
We've
moved
what
used
to
be
announced
in
the
company
call
over
to
a
slack
channel
where
it's,
where
more
people
can
see
it.
If
you
don't
necessarily
have
to
be
on
the
call,
and
it's
one
of
those
things
that
for
some
companies
it
would
be
the
end
of
the
world
to
have
to
you
know,
that's
our
culture,
but
it's
not
like
make
it
better,
don't
be
afraid
to
change
it
and
make
it
better,
and
you
might
have
to
do
that
really
rapidly.
A
B
A
Are
new
to
remote
suddenly
remote
teams,
they
are
more
inclined
to
just
kind
of
leave
their
bubble
green
on
slack
with
no
it's
like
I'm
generally
like,
but
that's
actually
not
true.
Like
your
triadic
real
work
done,
their
cat
is
actually
climbing
on
their
head.
You
know
the
kid
just
stubbed
their
toe
two
rooms
over
but.
A
A
A
You
just
need
some
fresh
air.
You
just
like
do
anything
it
doesn't
matter.
This
sign
just
says:
hey
I
need
some
empathy.
I
need
some
space
I
hear
you
I'll,
give
back
to
you
like
I
am
I'm
here,
but
I'm
going
to
not
be
of
assistance
to
you
right
now.
I
mean
it's
just
that
creates
this
blanket
of
empathy
where,
if
you
see
that
it's
like
number
one
cool
totally
got
it
yeah
or
to
the
next
time
this
person
interacts
with
you
truly
check
in
with
this
person,
yeah.
B
A
Like
that
yeah
this
can
this
wait
till
tomorrow,
like
I,
saw
that
red
sign
I've
got
something
that
I
love
your
help
on,
but
honestly
it's
kind
of
low
priority.
Would
it
be
better
for
you
if
we
schedule
this
for
later?
It
invites
those
kind
of
conversations
instead
of
letting
them
go
under
the
radar
and
just
yeah.
A
B
A
A
B
A
Bit
more
into
a
cohesion
as
the
team
scales,
it
takes
intentionality
in
a
remote
environment
and
here's
what
I
mean
by
that.
It
is
actually
a
responsibility
of
our
people
group
to
meet
with
leaders
of
the
individual
teams,
whether
that's
finance,
engineering,
marketing
and
so
on,
meet
with
those
leaders
and
figure
out.
What
events
can
we
put
on
the
calendars
of
your
whole
team,
or
even
some
teams
within
like
okay.
B
A
Marketing
and
product
marketing
us
within
marketing,
so
you
get
even
smaller.
Can
we
do
things
like
a
great
example?
Is
this
week
we're
having
all
marketing
talent
show,
it
can
be
you,
it
can
be
a
family
member.
It
can
be
a
kid.
It
can
be
a
pet
whatever.
If
there's
a
document,
that's
been
attached
to
this.
It's
been
in
the
calendar
for
a
weeks
now
and
you
can
sign
up
like
this.
A
Is
the
person
or
animal
I'm
bringing
this
is
the
talent
that
I'm
going
to
display
and
then
there's
a
judging
panel
and
like
it
will
be
ranked,
and
people
will
win
stuff
like
there's
gonna,
be
like
a
full-on
talent.
Show
this
stuff
helps
build
build
team
cohesion,
but
it
will
never
happen
if
the
people
group
doesn't
take
responsibility
of
making
it
happen.
This
is
the
kind
of
thing
where
you
need
a
team
dedicated
to
culture.
A
A
To
do
it
if
they
have
like
strong-willed
extroverts,
that's
in
the
absence
of
leadership,
lead
I'm,
just
gonna
yeah
create
something
and
get
the
team
together.
What
if
we
have
a
team
full
of
introverts?
It's
like
I,
don't
know
it's
true,
yes,
I,
don't
feel
like
owning
this
I.
Definitely
don't
want
to
run
this
I.
Don't
want
to
be
the
leader
on
this
call,
but
if
it
exists,
I
would
happily
show
up.
So
that
becomes
a
intentional
responsibility
of
the
culture
of
people
team
to
meet
with
leaders.
A
B
B
B
B
A
Build
strong
bonds
and
strong
culture
going
forward,
I
mean
it
matters
a
lot
right
now,
but
it's
something
to
the
sooner
you
implement
this.
The
better
I
think
the
core
thread
the
core
takeaway
about.
This
is
intention.
Ality
remote
teams
require
intentionality
in
a
way
that
in
office
teams
do
not
so
much
just
happen
spontaneously
in
an
office.
People
just
naturally
walk
by
each
other.
They
naturally
think
of
conversation.
A
Think
of
games
that
they
want
to
do
because
they're
in
that
same
shared
physical
space
and
we're
conditioned
from
childhood
in
classrooms,
which
are
just
kid
offices
to
do
the
exact
same
thing.
So
when
you
put
us
in
an
office
as
an
adult
we're
like
oh,
we
got
it,
we've
been
doing
since
birth,
but
when
there's
no
physical
office
there,
you
have
to
be
intentional
about
replicating
that
you
have
to
be
intentional
about
informal
communication.
You
have
to
be
intentional
about
how
you
use
slack.
Otherwise
it
just
goes
crazy.
A
About
how
do
we
bond
as
a
team?
You
have
to
be
intentional
about
when
or
the
moments
during
the
year
that
we
get
people
together
in
the
same
space.
Everything
requires
a
little
bit
more
discipline
and
a
little
bit
more
intentionality,
but
that's
awesome
who,
who
would
want
less
discipline
and
intentionality
in
their
company,
is
additional
work,
but
the
longtail
benefits
of
it
are
incredible.
Yeah.