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Is it a good idea to not include other team members in emails to your manager about t

Hi,

The full title is meant to be: "Is it a good idea to not include other team members in emails to your manager about parts of a project they are not aware of?"

If you send an email about a topic which, while not personal, only you and your manager know about, do you include all other team members and if so, why?

I tend to decide not to because the topic is completely lost on those other team members, but to the dismay of my manager. When I recieve emails from colleagues (as part of a group of recipients), I tend to read half of them and ignore them because I have no idea what they mean.


In these scenarios, what's the best thing to do? It is possible to say something like "Person xyz, I know you're not aware of this part of our project but when we get to milestone xyz, this email will become much clearer."

Thanks
Reply 1
Avatar for bluenoxid
bluenoxid
13
It depends on a whole host of things. A major issue is confidentiality and sensitivity, so I would suggest avoiding bringing in your colleagues unless you are told to. This is something between you and your manager.
It depends entirely on what you do and what the emails are about. If it's a project that they're not involved in, or something they don't need to know, why would you include them? If it's something they are part of, yes include them. Unless it's confidential or something.
Reply 3
Avatar for MD.
MD.
I'd email it around to the whole team, unless you had a specific reason not to. That way, if a team member claims not to know what you were doing you can at least say that the email makes them aware of whats going on, even if they don't understand.

Basically, it won't do any harm to email it to everyone. It will keep your manager happy even if the team don't read/understand it! Definitely agree with the final point the OP makes. Adding a note saying it might not make any sense, but 'just to let you know' sounds liek a good idea.
Reply 4
Avatar for ttoby
ttoby
15
If I can think of a reason why they might need to know what's being discussed in the e-mail then I'd include them. Otherwise I'm just flooding their inboxes.
Different teams and offices have different conventions about emails. You should conform with whatever the office practice is. Sounds like you boss wants to keep everyone informed, so you should keep everyone informed.

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