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Slack isn’t the issue. It’s how you use it. > Not responding to a message quickly is considered a major failing. Not responding to a message directed at you in

by bbx 7y ago

Slack isn’t the issue. It’s how you use it. > Not responding to a message quickly is considered a major failing. Not responding to a message directed at you in a group channel immediately is considered to be a grave sin. Nope. That’s not an issue with Slack. It’s your interpretation of what a message or DM is. There’s no timer attached to a DM. This urgency is self-inflicted. > You must stop to check your messages at least twice an hour. Says who? Does the Slack app automatically launched every 30 minutes, and can’t be closed until you’ve read all messages? Nope. It’s you yourself who leaves Slack open or checks it every hour. > ALL WORK, including troubleshooting issues, fixing bugs, and answered questions should go through the Product Owner. So if I send an email directly to a developer, bypassing the product owner, should I blame email? Nope. The tool isn’t the issue here. It’s the team discipline. The problem isn’t Slack. Its never Slack. It’s the lack of discipline of people using it. In my last 2 jobs, we used Slack. But it never hindered our productivity. Because we had more important matters to focus on. But it would still help us monitor some topics, and engage with colleagues for small tasks not issues. And personally I would only open Slack a few times a day. Like checking email. People like to hate Slack, because it’s an easy excuse for poor self-discipline. And are jealous of its success because it’s just “IRC with emojis”. I feel like if people writing these types of articles bought an electric drill, they’d end up drilling holes in all their walls, because they somehow felt the urgency to do it, and would end up blaming the tool, not themselves.

jodrellblank 7y ago
A miserable “it’s tour fault loser, I’m better than you” dismissal. Communication tools aren’t used in isolation, they’re a connection between people, it’s not just how you use them, it’s how the people on the other ends of the comma use them as well. No of course it’s not the slack app opening every 30 minutes and not being closeable, it’s the Slack affordances putting your name in the middle of a big team wide discussion which you are conspicuously absent from, it’s the Slack channel where you’re visibly (and logged forever) asked to help with something and didn’t respond, it’s the Slack usurping of where decisions were made from an official place for decisions (committee meeting, Github issues) to a place where people are chatting at the time the decision comes up (coffee shop, pub, chat log). It’s as daft someone complaining that they have a family and can’t go to the after work drinks, but the people who do go are perceived to be the important, hard workers, taking decisions with limited input and documentation. And then you say “I chose not to have a family so it’s all your fault” No they wouldn’t be tempted to drill every wall, as if.
- al2o3cr 7y ago
  It’s as daft someone complaining that they have a family and can’t go to the after work drinks, but the people who do go are perceived to be the important, hard workers, taking decisions with limited input and documentation. And then you say “I chose not to have a family so it’s all your fault” Blaming Slack is like blaming the bar in this situation.
  - jodrellblank 7y ago
    Denying that tools affect the way people use them, is dismissive. "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" is a saying for a reason, but it's worse with group tools. If the only communication tool /your company uses/ is an instant messenger, then every problem looks like an instant message - short, interruptive, equally urgent, and audited forever, holding everyone accountable. If that's the tool everyone else uses, then blaming one person for not resisting is inaccurate and unfair. Blaming the team for only using that is fair game, but blaming the tool for being designed that way is also fair game. Slack promotes itself as a panacea, the top of the homepage says "Whatever work you do, you can do it in Slack" and the first image you see[1] is a channel called #annual-planning where Emily asks "How are those year-end numbers coming along" and Paul replies in 20 minutes with a PDF with a graph embedded in the chat, and 1 minute later, Sarah (someone else) says "wow". In that image[1], which of these people are you supposed to imagine that you are? Emily, able to drop in on anyone and check up on them instantly, or Paul, interrupted and rushed for something someone else wants at the drop of a hat, knowing that at least two people with power enough to ask this of you, have been alerted to the request by the channel, and are now thinking about this topic? Or are you intended to think, as the parent commenter here suggests, that you are Paul and you could ignore the request entirely if you wanted because it's up to you not to be weak? Either Paul had to drop what he was doing and turn the numbers into a graph, turn the graph into a PDF, and share the PDF - or Emily and Sarah have just bothered Paul to link them to a PDF they could have found by themselves. Or Paul was already working on it and they have absolutely no tools for tracking progress where Emily could have seen the current status without the interruption. Is the design of the product, and the way it's demonstrated, selling you on the idea that /you/ are the powerful person in the screenshot and /you/ can get instant answers from anyone, anywhere, anytime, without having to wait too long? The second image[2] in their carousel is no better in this context, Sarah is asking Paul for a link to a document. Which is perfectly fine and pleasant, but .. can't she use a computer? Why can't she get to the document directly? It's on a Google Drive, is there no clear folder structure in their company, no "search" in either Slack or Google? Oh wait the point of this image is that you can bring files into one place and the next image is that "files are easily searchable". Apparently not easy enough for Sarah to use to avoid using Paul as human search. Maybe that's his job? Who knows. [1] https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/organize-conversations/organize-conversations-slack-product-desktop.en-GB.png https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/or... [2] https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/share-files/share-files-slack-product-desktop.en-GB.png https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/sh...
human20190310 7y ago
> I feel like if people writing these types of articles bought an electric drill, they’d end up drilling holes in all their walls A more apt analogy would be finding holes and injuries all over the office after handing out electric drills to every single person. It would happen. Slack is a tool that requires user discipline, yet it is generally deployed company-wide. Its major flaw is that it brings together people who need urgency (sales/support) and those who must avoid it (development).
- kintalo 7y ago
  development must avoid urgency?
  - northwest65 7y ago
    They need to avoid product being a fist up their arse turning their head in different directions like a puppet, if that is counter to getting meaningful work done. In some organisations that probably means having an insulator between product and dev.
ivanhoe 7y ago
> I would only open Slack a few times a day. Like checking email. Why not just use email for it then? Why pay for Slack and use it as something that you can have for free? In most organizations that I know Slack is not used like email at all, but instead like a never-ending conference call. And just like in conference-calls and meetings, you can avoid them, but if you never take part in them the rest will unavoidably perceive that as a lack of initiative and interest on your side. Even more importantly, you might miss some important information. And yes, that sense of pressure and urgency is totally self-inflicted, but that's how office politics work in real world and some tools are just amplifying it. So it's not about Slack, it's about using Slack in your environment, as flowed as it is...
matchbok 7y ago
> Nope. That’s not an issue with Slack. It’s your interpretation of what a message or DM is. There’s no timer attached to a DM. This urgency is self-inflicted. Yes there is. If there is no urgency then it's no better than an email in a worse, less-searchable UI. Direct chat has been, since it's invention, a synchronous action. That is how people use it. > The problem isn’t Slack. Its never Slack. It’s the lack of discipline of people using it. Email does not require discipline to use properly.
- jnwatson 7y ago
  Email does indeed require discipline. Poorly phrased messages, inconsistent quoting, too many recipients are all bad. Checking email too often is a productivity killing habit. However, the worst, most common, problem with email is disorganization. It takes a great deal of effort to organize received emails so they are appropriately handled. I do not miss the days where I’d spend an hour every weekend filing my inbox.
  - lanstin 7y ago
    Not to mention the people that never read the whole message if it is more than two sentences. I can’t count how often I have seen some ‘urgent production’ issue email thread with like fifty people and fifty emails and the stupid answer was in the logs in the very first email all along.
- halbritt 7y ago
  It's way better than an email in the sense that most of the discourse on slack is human authored whereas most of the email that lands in my box isn't. I care about human interaction and slack facilitates that nicely.
- manicdee 7y ago
  DM is a request for urgent attention, the social contract per team or per individual might be “respond to DMs immediately” but there’s no need to actually respond with the answer whatever question was asked. As an example: my teams know that I check email twice a day (once on arriving, once in late afternoon), but I will respond to DMs about every half hour or so (Pomodoro time). There’s no promise of immediate response, because I have stuff I am actually doing.
randomsearch 7y ago
The design of technology shapes how people use it.
xenocyon 7y ago
A productivity tool must be judged by how the average person actually uses it, not by how an ideal user might.

by bbx 7y ago

jodrellblank 7y ago

A miserable “it’s tour fault loser, I’m better than you” dismissal. Communication tools aren’t used in isolation, they’re a connection between people, it’s not just how you use them, it’s how the people on the other ends of the comma use them as well. No of course it’s not the slack app opening every 30 minutes and not being closeable, it’s the Slack affordances putting your name in the middle of a big team wide discussion which you are conspicuously absent from, it’s the Slack channel where you’re visibly (and logged forever) asked to help with something and didn’t respond, it’s the Slack usurping of where decisions were made from an official place for decisions (committee meeting, Github issues) to a place where people are chatting at the time the decision comes up (coffee shop, pub, chat log). It’s as daft someone complaining that they have a family and can’t go to the after work drinks, but the people who do go are perceived to be the important, hard workers, taking decisions with limited input and documentation. And then you say “I chose not to have a family so it’s all your fault” No they wouldn’t be tempted to drill every wall, as if.

al2o3cr 7y ago
It’s as daft someone complaining that they have a family and can’t go to the after work drinks, but the people who do go are perceived to be the important, hard workers, taking decisions with limited input and documentation. And then you say “I chose not to have a family so it’s all your fault” Blaming Slack is like blaming the bar in this situation.
- jodrellblank 7y ago
  Denying that tools affect the way people use them, is dismissive. "If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail" is a saying for a reason, but it's worse with group tools. If the only communication tool /your company uses/ is an instant messenger, then every problem looks like an instant message - short, interruptive, equally urgent, and audited forever, holding everyone accountable. If that's the tool everyone else uses, then blaming one person for not resisting is inaccurate and unfair. Blaming the team for only using that is fair game, but blaming the tool for being designed that way is also fair game. Slack promotes itself as a panacea, the top of the homepage says "Whatever work you do, you can do it in Slack" and the first image you see[1] is a channel called #annual-planning where Emily asks "How are those year-end numbers coming along" and Paul replies in 20 minutes with a PDF with a graph embedded in the chat, and 1 minute later, Sarah (someone else) says "wow". In that image[1], which of these people are you supposed to imagine that you are? Emily, able to drop in on anyone and check up on them instantly, or Paul, interrupted and rushed for something someone else wants at the drop of a hat, knowing that at least two people with power enough to ask this of you, have been alerted to the request by the channel, and are now thinking about this topic? Or are you intended to think, as the parent commenter here suggests, that you are Paul and you could ignore the request entirely if you wanted because it's up to you not to be weak? Either Paul had to drop what he was doing and turn the numbers into a graph, turn the graph into a PDF, and share the PDF - or Emily and Sarah have just bothered Paul to link them to a PDF they could have found by themselves. Or Paul was already working on it and they have absolutely no tools for tracking progress where Emily could have seen the current status without the interruption. Is the design of the product, and the way it's demonstrated, selling you on the idea that /you/ are the powerful person in the screenshot and /you/ can get instant answers from anyone, anywhere, anytime, without having to wait too long? The second image[2] in their carousel is no better in this context, Sarah is asking Paul for a link to a document. Which is perfectly fine and pleasant, but .. can't she use a computer? Why can't she get to the document directly? It's on a Google Drive, is there no clear folder structure in their company, no "search" in either Slack or Google? Oh wait the point of this image is that you can bring files into one place and the next image is that "files are easily searchable". Apparently not easy enough for Sarah to use to avoid using Paul as human search. Maybe that's his job? Who knows. [1] https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/organize-conversations/organize-conversations-slack-product-desktop.en-GB.png https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/or... [2] https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/share-files/share-files-slack-product-desktop.en-GB.png https://a.slack-edge.com/11cf9/marketing/img/homepage/uis/sh...

human20190310 7y ago

> I feel like if people writing these types of articles bought an electric drill, they’d end up drilling holes in all their walls A more apt analogy would be finding holes and injuries all over the office after handing out electric drills to every single person. It would happen. Slack is a tool that requires user discipline, yet it is generally deployed company-wide. Its major flaw is that it brings together people who need urgency (sales/support) and those who must avoid it (development).

kintalo 7y ago
development must avoid urgency?
- northwest65 7y ago
  They need to avoid product being a fist up their arse turning their head in different directions like a puppet, if that is counter to getting meaningful work done. In some organisations that probably means having an insulator between product and dev.

ivanhoe 7y ago

> I would only open Slack a few times a day. Like checking email. Why not just use email for it then? Why pay for Slack and use it as something that you can have for free? In most organizations that I know Slack is not used like email at all, but instead like a never-ending conference call. And just like in conference-calls and meetings, you can avoid them, but if you never take part in them the rest will unavoidably perceive that as a lack of initiative and interest on your side. Even more importantly, you might miss some important information. And yes, that sense of pressure and urgency is totally self-inflicted, but that's how office politics work in real world and some tools are just amplifying it. So it's not about Slack, it's about using Slack in your environment, as flowed as it is...

matchbok 7y ago

> Nope. That’s not an issue with Slack. It’s your interpretation of what a message or DM is. There’s no timer attached to a DM. This urgency is self-inflicted. Yes there is. If there is no urgency then it's no better than an email in a worse, less-searchable UI. Direct chat has been, since it's invention, a synchronous action. That is how people use it. > The problem isn’t Slack. Its never Slack. It’s the lack of discipline of people using it. Email does not require discipline to use properly.

jnwatson 7y ago
Email does indeed require discipline. Poorly phrased messages, inconsistent quoting, too many recipients are all bad. Checking email too often is a productivity killing habit. However, the worst, most common, problem with email is disorganization. It takes a great deal of effort to organize received emails so they are appropriately handled. I do not miss the days where I’d spend an hour every weekend filing my inbox.
- lanstin 7y ago
  Not to mention the people that never read the whole message if it is more than two sentences. I can’t count how often I have seen some ‘urgent production’ issue email thread with like fifty people and fifty emails and the stupid answer was in the logs in the very first email all along.
halbritt 7y ago
It's way better than an email in the sense that most of the discourse on slack is human authored whereas most of the email that lands in my box isn't. I care about human interaction and slack facilitates that nicely.
manicdee 7y ago
DM is a request for urgent attention, the social contract per team or per individual might be “respond to DMs immediately” but there’s no need to actually respond with the answer whatever question was asked. As an example: my teams know that I check email twice a day (once on arriving, once in late afternoon), but I will respond to DMs about every half hour or so (Pomodoro time). There’s no promise of immediate response, because I have stuff I am actually doing.

randomsearch 7y ago

The design of technology shapes how people use it.

xenocyon 7y ago

A productivity tool must be judged by how the average person actually uses it, not by how an ideal user might.