Ever since we adopted Slack, I feel our team feels everything is urgent. Let’s just put it up on Slack cause I see someone else online. I am to blame as well for this behaviour. There are times I will email my developers a small change but there are also times when I will put it on Slack, tag them and probably interrupt them from what they are doing. My request was not urgent – just a small change. So, why use a real-time system?
Last week similar thing happened.
We were using Brightpod to discuss a new feature that we launched today. I get a ping on Slack asking me to look at the UI and how everything flows.
I see a disconnect here….you were using BP message comments for the “remove team member” feature…today you started using Slack to send updates…So now the info is in 2 places...
My comment above got me thinking. Others (our customers also use Slack) might be facing the same problem. Slack is incredibly easy to use and you don’t go inside projects, then tasks to comment on something. More friction means that much harder something is going to be to use. Or maybe, there is a way for Slack and Brightpod to interoperate well But, getting all comments from Slack into Brightpod is going to be messy – so many are just worthless conversations about a project!
Is Slack a threat to project management software? Personally, I don’t think so. One thing I don’t like about Slack is remembering commands etc…so I am not a big fan of adding tasks etc. using Slack cause I can barely remember the /remind command.
Digging deeper I think it boils down to team behaviour. Stuff that needs feedback that is not immediate does not live in Slack. Period!
I think people just mix up a-sync with sync. As I think about it more, it is a behavioual change rather than a tool change. Whatsapp, Slack as tools are just making us want feedback faster.
Team conversations / feedback are currently in multiple places. If we can find a way to sync all places into one, that would be golden. But, that would also mean a lot of clutter.
In Brightpod, we don’t have real-time anything (nor do we have browser notifications). Maybe that is a good thing today when you want to build mindful software that minimizes distractions, respects attention and does not come in the way of people’s productivity and getting work done.
When customers email us about a Slack integration we ask them what their use case is. How are they envisioning this integration. How would look working with these these 2 tools each day. Do you use a project management software with Slack integration? Is it working out for you? Would love to hear your comments!
Thoughts on real-time and building mindful software was originally published in Sahil Parikh -The Journey on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.