Default to async. Sync only at defined touchpoints or when genuinely needed. The planning sheet + daily standup + GitHub gives everyone enough context to work autonomously.
Rhythm
Daily standup (async) — Slack workflow pings the team at 8am KST. Share what you're working on today. Not a meeting — a written check-in.
Monday all-hands — Brief weekly sync to kick off the week. The only recurring whole-team call. Everything gets discussed here — product, marketing, ops.
Ad-hoc Slack sharing — Beyond the standup, share thinking throughout the week. "I'm working on X and was thinking about doing Y. What do you think?" Low friction, high visibility. If something matters for the whole team — product direction, business context, operational decisions — post it to the channel or tag the team. Don't let critical thinking stay buried in a side thread. Use @mentions to pinpoint a specific person on a specific ask; use the channel to surface what everyone needs to see.
Sync when stuck — If a Slack thread has five messages back and forth and you're not converging, hop on a call. That's the rule of thumb. Async is great until it isn't — recognize when you're going in circles and just talk. Keep it short, and afterward post a summary of what was decided so people who weren't there have full context.
Tools
GitHub Issues and Projects — Single source of truth for decisions, tasks, and prioritization. GitHub Projects board is where work gets tracked. Customer feedback flows here too — Discussions for feature conversations, Issues for bugs, Projects for prioritization.
Slack — Lightweight coordination. Long updates belong in GitHub. Huddles for real-time discussion when async isn't cutting it.
Devin — AI software engineer with a dedicated Slack channel. Treated like a colleague with transparent workflow.
Dev tools — Zed, GitButler, Cursor, Claude Code.
Escalation
Use Slack.
- Huddle — Truly urgent, can't wait
- Mention — Reasonably urgent, can wait hours
AI-augmented
A small, mission-aligned team augmented with AI can outperform companies with hundreds of people. We use AI teammates (Devin, Claude Code) for routine engineering work, content generation, and codebase maintenance. See Automated Workflows for specifics.