Ask Your Dev Team about their communication guidelines

Good communication does not mean more messages. It means everyone knows where a message belongs, when a response is expected, and what deserves an interruption.

Without communication guidelines, important decisions disappear into chat threads, routine questions become meetings, and genuine emergencies compete with everything else. A strong development partner sets the rules before that confusion starts.

Start with purpose, not preference

The right channel depends on what the message needs to accomplish. Your developer should be able to explain their default for each kind of communication.

The project tracker records the work

Tasks, requirements, bugs, decisions, and approvals should live in the system where the team manages the project. That might be Linear, Jira, GitHub, Notion, or something else. The tool matters less than the habit.

If a conversation changes what the team will build, how much it will cost, or when it will be delivered, the outcome belongs in the project tracker. A decision that exists only in someone’s memory or a private message is easy to lose.

Chat handles quick coordination

Chat is useful for short questions, status checks, and coordination that does not need a permanent record. It should help work move without becoming the place where every decision is made.

Ask whether the team distinguishes between a message that can wait and one that needs a same-day response. If every chat message feels urgent, people either stay distracted or learn to ignore the channel entirely.

Email confirms formal or external decisions

Email works well for contract changes, approvals, summaries sent to a broader group, and communication with people who are not in the project workspace. It is less useful for a fast-moving technical conversation.

The important part is not whether a decision happens in email or chat. It is whether the final decision is copied into the project’s shared record.

Meetings resolve ambiguity

A meeting is valuable when a topic has competing perspectives, emotional weight, or enough ambiguity that written messages create more questions than answers.

A meeting should produce a decision, an owner, or a next step. If the team regularly holds meetings just to repeat information that already exists in writing, the communication process needs work.

Calls and texts are for genuine urgency

A production outage, security incident, or other time-sensitive problem may justify a phone call or text. A routine request usually does not.

Your developer should define what qualifies as urgent, who gets contacted, and what happens if the first person does not respond. This is the escalation path. It protects your product without turning every inconvenience into an emergency.

Agree on response expectations

Communication breaks down when one person expects an answer in an hour and the other thinks tomorrow is fine. You do not need an immediate response to every message, but you do need shared expectations.

Ask for guidelines covering:

Routine questions: When should you expect an acknowledgment or answer?
Blocked work: How quickly will the team tell you that they need a decision?
Budget or schedule risk: Who contacts you, and how early?
Critical incidents: Which channel is used, who is called, and how often will you receive updates?
Time away: How are absences and backup contacts communicated?

These expectations should work both ways. If your developer needs a decision from you to keep the project moving, they should know how long to wait and when to escalate.

What to ask

“What belongs in the project tracker, chat, email, or a meeting?” Look for a clear default, not a tool preference.
“What response times should we expect from each other?” The answer can vary by urgency, but it should be explicit.
“How do you communicate a decision made in a call or private message?” It should be recorded somewhere the whole team can find it.
“What is your escalation path for a blocker or critical incident?” You should know who contacts whom before the first emergency.
“How will we revisit these guidelines if they are not working?” Communication needs change as a project and team grow.

We covered the rhythm of updates in issue 24 and the process behind the work in issue 26. Communication guidelines connect the two. They make sure the right information reaches the right person in the right place.

At Cuttlesoft, I have found that the healthiest projects are not the ones with the most communication. They are the ones where nobody has to guess how to communicate.

Go build something and expect better from your developer.