The theory

Company and team alignment has a half-life. It’s highest after that all-hands presentation or quarterly goal-setting session, but memory fades and static docs tend to collect dust in the face of day-to-day work. If you want to stay aligned, you have to feed it.

The problem is, meetings are too inefficient to keep up with the half-life of alignment. Without a more efficient approach, companies get caught in an alignment trap; you either have strong alignment and a velocity problem (AKA the “I do my work after work” problem), or weak alignment and a “cats in a bag” problem where teams are misaligned, working in the wrong direction, or actively undermining each other. Either end represents a serious risk.

What’s worse, meetings and other ad-hoc approaches are brittle. They depend on everyone doing the right thing, on their own, day in, day out. That works for small teams, but 50 people? 500? 5000? The odds aren’t in your favor. Adopting an ad-hoc approach is actively signing up for endless process policing.

The way out? Apply the principle behind Continuous Integration to teamwork by breaking alignment work down into smaller, higher-frequency, automated async loops — two loops, specifically.

The big-picture loop keeps multiple teams and entire organizations aligned on what matters. Every team is working toward something bigger — a sprint, a project, a quarterly goal, a company initiative. The big-picture loop runs weekly/bi-weekly/monthly, keeping everyone informed on where those bigger efforts stand.

The ground-level loop keeps individual teams in tight sync day-to-day. Team members share plans, progress, and blockers through regular async updates, helping contributors prioritize tasks, address budding issues, and coordinate action plans.

This dual loop strategy cuts the alignment trap Gordian Knot. Everyone up and down the org has complete context day in, day out, and plenty of time for deep work. Even better, you have a full record of history of who’s done what and why, and nobody gets saddled with the frustrating, low-value process police job. It’s a game changer for working as a team.

Further reading

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.

  Decodes the process and positive compounding effect of adopting a series of small habits, like the dual-loop communication approach.

• Harnish, V. (2002). Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm (1st ed.). SelectBooks.

  Harnish advocates for establishing a rhythmic communication pattern within an organization, which is crucial for ensuring everyone is aligned and moving towards the same goals.

• Scott, J., Murph., D., et al. (2021, May 24). How to embrace asynchronous communication for remote work. GitLab.

  GitLabs’ comprehensive guide on mastering asynchronous work and remote communication.

• Fowler, M. (2006, May 1). Continuous Integration. mortinfowler.com.

  In this essay, Fowler describes the then-nascent concept of Continuous Integration, how it works through automated asynchronous loops, and its benefits to the software delivery process.