There are a couple coworkers who frequently respond to an email after other followup emails have been sent out in a thread, which fragments (splits) conversations and leads to confusion, inefficiencies, and frustrations.
For example, imagine this sequence involving at least these 4 people, always using Reply All
:
- Project manager 1
The customer has reported that X is not working when doing Y with error message Z.
- Tech support
Please refer to this section in the customer-facing FaQ: ... It is caused by A which is fixed by doing B instead. This unfriendly user-experience has been documented with ticket ### and I have escalated its priority.
The customer has reported that X is not working when doing Y with error message Z.
- Project Manager 2 (replying to the first email in the thread)
This issue also affects X2.
The customer has reported that X is not working when doing Y with error message Z.
- Supervisor (a couple hours later, responding to latest in the conversation)
Why is nobody looking into this? We are losing money while their system is down and it is harming our reputation!
This issue also affects X2.
The customer has reported that X is not working when doing Y with error message Z.
What seems to happen is that the fragmentor (project manager 2) starts typing up a response to the first email, and during the interim someone else (tech support) sends a response. The fragmentor then misses this helpful notice that Outlook provides, and sends the email anyway:
What I always do when I see this notice, is to select everything I just composed, copy it, open the latest message, and paste it in a reply there.
How can this behavior be gracefully corrected? I've already tried being nice and individually talking to the culprits about the issue multiple times, but the lesson is not learned. Playing the blame game and forwarding the fallout of their behavior will just result in defensive behavior and harm synergy, yet appears to be the only response that might close the loop of action and consequence to their inadvertently-destructive behavior.