‘Hail Mary’ Emails

The timely ‘pitch and pray’ technique.

On a good day I receive somewhere in the order of 30 emails.  A few of them are standard status reports.  Some are inquiries from other team members.  Others are forwarding snippets of information.

Every once in a while I receive a lone email whose subject line follows one of these patterns:

"Problem <verb> <subject>"
-or-
"Issue when <verb> <subject>"

If you work for a company who develops software you see these often.  They are the pleas from the trenches; those men and women who have reached an impasse and are asking the team to guide them.

I have no issue with these emails.  Over the years I have sent a few.  Sending the email is ok, but if you have to send one, please verify your target audience.  All too often the audience is a large group encompassing engineers, architects, and project managers.  With such a large, diverse group sometimes the responses are lacking.

Once such an email enters my inbox, one of two things happen:

1) Several people respond to the request.  Each is one of the following responses:

1. "I don’t know." (not helpful)
2. "I know who can help you." (kind of helpful)
3. "Did you try…?" (helpful if you are lucky)
4. "I know how to fix your problem." (helpful only if it works)
5. "I am fixing it right now." (again, helpful if it works)

2) The other potential outcome is that no one responds.  With no response from your team, you are left with wondering if you sent the email correctly or if anyone even knows the answer.  Now you are further behind.  With no solution in-hand, you are left waiting.

I call these ‘Hail Mary‘ emails.  It is when the author pitches an email to a group and prays that one of the responses is useful.

Here is an abbreviated, real-life example:

Week 1:

‘Hail Mary’ Email (sent to everyone): "The build is broken"
Eventual Response from John (a member of the build team): "We know & we’re working on it."

Week 2:

‘Hail Mary’ Email (sent to everyone): "The build is broken again"
Response from the build team: "We know.  We’re working on it."

Week 3:

‘Hail Mary’ Email (sent to everyone): "Component X is broken in the build"
Response from Jane (filling in for John): "I was just informed.  Working on it.  Will be fixed shortly."

If you have to send an email to inform the build management team that the build is broken, send it to the build management team.  The majority of the receivers of these conversations were engineers, all of whom had no power to fix the problem.  If multiple engineers send emails to the team that is fine.  At least it is only a few people receiving the messages, and not a larger organization.

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If you are about to send a ‘Hail Mary’ email:

1. Can you send it to a single person or a small team?
2. If the goal is to inform a larger team, then is there a better way (e.g. a dashboard)?

If you receive a ‘Hail Mary’ email:

1. If the email was sent to a group, never respond to the group with an "I don’t know".
2. If you can help resolve the problem, respond only to the author.  Once the issue is corrected, the author should inform the group that the issue has been addressed and how it was addressed.
3. If the email follows a pattern (e.g. every Friday), define a process to handle them.  Why clutter up everyone’s inbox?