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Archived as of January 20, 2025

How we collaborate

As a remote organization, TTSC relies on various practices and tools to enable positive and productive collaboration. These help us get to know each other, foster community, and support respectful and inclusive collaboration.

Virtual coffees

TTS has a tradition of encouraging staff to get to know each other and talk shop in casual, one-on-one conversations called “virtual coffees” (or “virtual teas,” though beverages). Learn more and get ideas for who to coffee with next from , external,TTS-only, TTS Virtual Coffees.

Personal READMEs

Personal READMEs are a way for folks to better get to know each other before we start working together. READMEs for you and me outlines the origins of this practice.

Guilds and collectives

TTS’s affinity groups, working groups, and guilds formed in the early days of 18F as a way to share best practices and learn from each other. These groups and guilds have expanded and now welcome people from across TTS.

A couple groups particularly focused on TTSC work and practices are:

Inclusive practices for remote meetings

  • Work from a quiet space without much background noise. If you need to discuss sensitive topics, present to partners or stakeholders, or handle personnel issues, make sure you have privacy.
  • Default to using video so colleagues can see your face and gestures. Nonverbal feedback and cues help keep the conversation moving while building empathy and trust. If you do “facemute” (for instance, because you’re eating), turn the video back on when you can. For more about our video conferencing tool, see meetings and meeting tools.
  • Mute your microphone when you aren’t speaking in large meetings so your background noise doesn’t override others’ mics. Un-muting also signals that you’d like to speak, much like leaning forward in an in-person meeting.
  • Occasionally you may need to take a meeting from transit or from a non-workspace; that should be rare, and only for meetings that don’t involve screen-sharing, remote collaboration, or presentations.
  • It’s common for virtual meetings to have a back channel, whether in the meeting platform, Slack, or G-chat. It’s another place for communication, questions, and commentary from attendees. This can be distracting for some folks. Feel free to ignore the chat during the meeting and read it after, if needed. If you're working on a project team, make sure to communicate your preferences to the team.

Conduct codes

As employees of GSA, FAS, TTS, and TTS Consulting, we must adhere to a few layers of conduct codes:

TTSC Slack Code of Conduct

Using Slack at TTS is different from other Slack instances you may have participated in because:

With those things in mind, please:

Be kind

  • Since we’re remote-first, Slack is a critical part of our culture. It’s one of the primary ways you’ll interact with your coworkers.
    • In TTS, this interaction is often through reaction emoji (“reactji”). Take as much care with these as you would with a written response, and be mindful that in-jokes and past references aren’t universally understood.
  • Slack is not always the right tool for what you need to do. Constructive feedback is best delivered face to face, such as on a video call or in person.

Be professional

  • Anyone with access to TTS Slack can see every message in public Slack channels to which they have access, even if they’re not a member of the channel, and all public channel content appears in Slack search results. If a less accessible space is appropriate for a conversation, consider email, a video call, or Google chat.
  • Remember, users have no expectation of privacy on GSA IT resources as all activities are subject to monitoring.
  • Since TTS works across multiple time zones, set expectations for response times, or be clear if an asynchronous or later response is fine.
  • TTS Slack has been and will continue to be a subject of FOIA and public records requests, which can often remove context, or place comments in a context you didn’t intend.

Write to be understood, read to understand

  • Without the context of body language, voice, and tone, it’s easy to misunderstand written communication. Prioritize clarity!
  • Keep conversations in the appropriate channels.
  • Some projects or topics have multiple channels.
  • Since all content from public channels is visible and shows up in Slack search, this helps frame conversations and discussions.
  • Threading comments helps retain the context of a discussion. If asked to thread, please do so.

Not all parts of TTS use or view Slack the same way. Be attentive to cultural differences, especially in significant shared spaces and large channels. Real-time written communication and reactions can easily lead to hard feelings. If our work is to continue flourishing, we need to all be in this together.

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