Last week I was surprised by my Scrum Master as he asked me to prepare presentation about Slack for the wider team in the office. Naturally I thought why not write a blog post too, as this would be a perfect step towards getting prepared.

What is Slack?

For people who don’t know (those are usually not Devs), Slack is a tool, a piece of software that allows teams to communicate effectively as well as provides an easy way to keep track of important topics in channel discussions also offers many external API integrations as example: you may setup notifications for WEB Project deployment process. Overall this tool can offer much more than just chat features. You can handle calls, setup reminders for the team, share formatted code snippets, integrate your task management system, build server notifications, even create your own service integration (i.e. inform the team when external service goes down, when new customer gets on-boarded or whatever else pops in your mind), and so much more! Never the less you can use it on your PC and/or Smartphone and stay up-to-date at any time.

Key things from my experience using Slack

  • no need to track loads of emails where you’re CC’ed
  • everything is real time
  • team channels where team communication happens
  • you can always ping anyone with a private message
  • history (free one is limited)
  • integration with build server, task management system (i.e. JIRA)
  • custom notification service about third parties API(s) status – built within a team
  • as example build or deployment process fails – whoever in the team sees that first, the one can start looking into it or helping solve the problem.
  • all communication is in one place and you can follow chronological history
  • it is quick
  • and I’m sure there are many teams using slack way beyond what I have just listed above

Pain points of team communication

Usually people who are not DEVs choose email as main communication tool and once developers are involved into those endless email chains they simply start filtering these out. Then some teams experience clear separation between people who write code and the ones who are bringing business requirements onto the table. I believe it should not be that way. Once everyone is using Slack and developing their own team culture of communication – nobody stays behind. Email content gets outdated too quickly to be worth circulating it and while you write all those “Hi”, “Dear”, “Kind regards” and other similar words – people on Slack have already solved the problem that you were writing about!

Ideas for improved communication

My own thoughts how communication and use of slack can improve everyone’s life:

  • Use general channel for letting team know you’re late, sick or announce some information that must be known for everyone
  • Use team channel (i.e. developers) to have more specific conversations
  • Have a channel for build notifications – anyone can join and see what has been deployed
  • Use separate channel for sharing random things – Slack has it out of the box, called “random”.
  • You may also consider #product-office, #front-end #back-end channels for optimal communication. Basically split into people groups that make sense to be together and not just follow an endless flow of conversation that you don’t necessarily have to participate in.
  • Use polls – they’re also available on Slack (you may have to activate plugin). Ask the team where would they prefer to go for lunch, or a product office, if they want to deploy feature live tonight or the other day – anything.
  • Integrate with google calendar, so the team would know what meetings they have and when simply just before they have to be there.
  • Check out even more things you can integrate to have a concentrated source of information (Slack apps)
  • Please stop email madness. This is 2018 now and tech people consider email as a way of sending documents or official notifications, account registration confirmations, order summaries or similar kind of subjects.

Summary

After all Slack is just a tool. You may choose another communication tool, however team spirit, culture and ways of acceptable communication should be discussed within the team to find the best ways of optimising it, so people won’t get overwhelmed with the flows of the office “noise”.

For my team: now please join the Slack, get involved and keep the track of what’s going on there. Check the presentation slides here. Have a nice day!