Slack messages are annoying, mostly go unread. Slack has no way of prioritizing or organizing itself. I've become more and more disaffected by Slack over time as a way of doing work. Instead, I prefer these other ways of async work, where it's tracked more permanently, and the tooling is built for a certain type of interaction. I view slack as work social media, a kind of ephemeral place or community. A place, at most, to share an idea with no commitment to get a response.
- I have a half-formed thought / brainstorm, and I want to "get it down", and need to "work it out". Don't put it on slack, that'll distract everyone, and probably be misunderstood anyway.
- Put it in your notetaking system (like logseq) until its fully formed, then get it in a google doc for more feedback
- I have a more fully-formed thought / idea / brainstorm and wish to share it with the team or an individual
- Write a short google doc and put that in slack asking for feedback. It's a better system for getting comments than slack
- If it takes more than a few sentences to explain, put it in a google doc
- I need to correspond about an issue or ticket relating to work -> use your issue or ticketing system
- I need to dig deep with a colleague - to resolve a conflict, dig deeply into an idea, or really get into something schedule a 1-1 or pairing session
- I have an important announcement to make. Depends on the importance. But to be honest, don't expect people to read detailed Slack announcements. Most people will scan it and try to decide quickly if it applies to them, because 90% of the time it doesn't. Make a few sentences with headlines and then post it. Also email it. If it's very important, and if you're a manager, and it's absolutely essential to know, have an all hands meeting where it's clear you'll make an announcement
- Rule of thumb, you have to repeat things 7 times, in many different channels, for people to see it.
- I have an urgent need. Try slack, but if its truly urgent, there needs to be a protocol at the company for responding to it (such as incidents -> pager duty, or a protocol/SLA for monitoring slack for help, etc). Otherwise, expect your colleagues could be focusing, and might not get to it for a while.
- I want to casually share a simple thought or idea but it only takes a few sentences and I don't expect anyone to take it seriously / won't be offended if nobody reads it -> Slack is OK
- I'm shitposting / being silly - sure use slack, as nobody is expected to keep up with this