It can sometimes be challenging to collaborate with team members especially in a setting where everyone is remote. I wanted to improve this for our team, and since Slack was one of the most widely used means of communication and collaboration, I wanted to look into how other teams were using Slack effectively. These are some things I found, along with some personal thoughts, that I think are important to keep in mind:

1. Clear up noise by leaving channels you don’t need to be in and managing notifications. It’s not rude to leave a channel. Make sure notifications are set only for direct messages, mentions, or keywords.

2. Don’t use @here or @channel unless it’s an emergency and you need everyone’s attention right away. This avoids work disruption. Use @username only as needed during work hours. Slack highlights channels with new messages so members will eventually see them. Be respectful of others’ time.

3. Set “do not disturb” if you know you’re going to be focused on something for a set amount of time. This will avoid context switching by keeping work uninterrupted.

4. Say no to DMs. Slack was not intended to be an instant messenger so try to avoid it unless the conversation is personal. If you’re talking about something project related, use a public channel since it could be useful for others. Members can also chime in and assist or provide another view point.

5. Favor one long message over multiple short ones. When you’re typing a message, try to communicate all your thoughts in one message. This makes it easier to respond using a thread and prevents others from having to wait until you finish your thoughts. Use the edit button to correct typos together with strikethrough to correct mistakes.

6. Favor threads to respond to messages. They keep the discussion in one place and makes it easier for others to catch up or have multiple discussions at once in one channel. You should always think of your post as starting a new thread.

7. If it’s taking too long to discuss something over Slack, resort to a call.

8. Embrace the inherent transparency of Slack, it was built for this. “We encourage conversations to happen in the most public venue they can,” CEO Stewart Butterfield has said of how Slack uses Slack. “There’s a lot of value sometimes to ask a question and get the answer in the biggest public forum that it could happen in.” Avoid private channels if not sharing protected information among members. Public channels allow users to loop in others as needed and track conversations. It also avoids having multiple branches related to the same conversation and promotes collaboration.

9. Don’t use group DMs. If you’re having to DM multiple people, move that conversation to a channel.

10. Assume best intent. Sometimes tone and context are lost in text.

11. Encourage and empower people to speak up. Ask opinions from teammates who tend to be more quiet or shy.

12. Before posting or asking something, search Slack and/or Confluence to see if you can find the answer. If someone answers your question, consider creating or adding to a Confluence page so that others can find the answer in the future.

13. Discussions for Jira tickets and Github pull requests should happen inside the ticket or pull request. This keeps the conversation tied to the piece of work being done. If you need immediate attention, send a team member the link to the source.

14. Favor emojis over text. If you can respond with an emoji, it’s more succinct and avoids creating unnecessary unread messages and notifications.

References:

• https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/communication/#slack
• https://zapier.com/blog/slack-etiquette-at-zapier/
• https://mode.com/blog/mode-slack-guidelines/#Modes-slack-guidelines
• https://techqueria.org/communities/slack/community-guidelines/
• https://lattice.com/library/how-hr-can-keep-slack-a-safe-productive-space
• https://slack.com/blog/collaboration/chief-product-officer-tamar-yehoshua-how-we-use-slack-at-slack