Over the centuries, we humans have improved our tools to be sharp, resilient, and robust enough to conquer different materials in specific conditions. With digital ventures, we invented software to carry out digital work and support our colleagues in different parts of the organisation. As the work moves from a team of one to a team of ten, let alone to one hundred, the communication multiplies exponentially and room for error increases. Scaling organisation to 100+ designers, we have to adopt different ways of working and communicating with each other.

Inevitably, with a greater number of design functions, we have to integrate with an overwhelming number of additional functions, departments and units in order to deliver our work.

That said, each of these functions has its own unique way of informing the rest of the unit or the functions. Businesses have their own way (email and powerpoints), the design has its own (systems and guides), and development has theirs (increments to release). Over the last thirty years, we have concentrated on task-based communication—sending the email, supplying the document, uploading or downloading the image(s). Leaving our communication channels flooded with unanswered messages that did not serve the purpose of finishing the task.

Despite several attempts with Google, Apple, Omni, SaaS, and Atlassian, we all somehow settled on Slack (or Teams), a communication channel that defines our current and future way of working.

Slack arrived here with the ambition to improve our productivity and move the success of digital team a little closer to efficiency. Powerful tool that transforms the way teams collaborate and work together. 

Unfortunately, things started turning against the companies and organisations as the employees got sucked in the endless stream of notifications and messages. The term “work” has significantly reshaped our impact and our productivity. We seem to become more busy but less productive. Before we dive to effective strategies on Slack cons, let's find out how we got here. 

Effective communication has always relied on memory to retain data. When the paper came along, and we recorded our thoughts and tasks, we got better at managing a greater amount of information. Books and bookkeeping opened new horizons, yet messaging stayed for another four centuries, a privilege of few. Until we discovered Morse code and radio waves later, it took almost a century to communicate tasks effectively.

Fun fact: Did you know that all calculations and communication on the launch of the first rocket to the moon were done on paper, and paper cards serve as a messaging system – because IMB took too long to switch on?

– Hidden Figures, 2016, PG, 129m, 20th Century Fox

Yet here we are, 21st-century coms reshaping the future of global working ethics without realising it impact. Outside of the tools themselves, let’s look at the paradigm of how we humans communicate and how well we impact others throughout our communication.

Urgency

Urgency has always played a key role in communication. Whether turning the course of the battle, deploying troops, or asking for additional resources. Telling your colleagues that the tasks have a greater urgency changes the narrative and impacts the response time. It helps us communicate the moment and immediate engagement.
What if others have a different urgency?
What if the urgency is driven by the so-called “catalyst” – an outside event?
What if the urgency has a blocker?
What if the blocker is you or something you need to do?
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

Priority

The priority list usually has three values—high, medium, or low. This allows the CPO (Certified Product Owner) to prioritise tasks against others in the day, week, or sprint. It also allows you to reprioritise the day and deliver on tasks that have a greater impact on the company. 

Teams often deliver through a collaborative effort, and priority plays a key role in day-to-day task management. In order to take advantage of prioritisation, we need to understand where the task came from. What is an original priority, and how do we need to reprioritise for ourselves? Then and only then we communicate back to our team on the green, Amber, and Red) traffic lights. Broadcast (Link)to other parties in your team that the task was acknowledged, sizes it’s in your pipeline, and, more importantly, it will be delivered on time.
What if there is a clash of priorities?
How best can we approach the same priority ticket/task?
Who decides what is achievable in one day of your work?
Who sizes it up and describes and broadcasts it?
Who gains the benefit from such a piece of information?
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

Channels

Chanells communication represents the key topics–#business, #research, #experience, #design_system, #product design, #development, #integration. These topics have a specific audience and, above all, specific communication patterns. It has often been the case that participants prefer one-to-one chats with other developers, designers, or business colleagues to resolve daily tasks.
Bringing back the efficiency – if the message benefits a broader audience, like “servers are down” or “figma plugin does not work”, I prefer to use the channel as this information is broadcasting and helps others to act on it without broader discussion. If we have a close matter about a specific interaction with my colleague David in Lisboa or Marczin in Berlin, this is always a design jam, and after that, we have a solution ready. Common questions for channels:
How do I inform the team members?
How do I broadcast?
When do I contact individuals?
When should I contact the team?
When I talk to Client Services people?
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

Badges–Daily Routine.

I personally respond to messages in three waves.
0830-9000–Morning badge, including broadcast about what I am going to do and what I expect from my team. Equally, what can they expect from me?
1130-1200—Lunch Badge, including check-in and all red flags that need to be resolved before the end of the day.
1630-1700–Afternoon Badge, focusing on what has been delivered in a day. 

This allows my team and I to have response times, leaving each of us connected and knowing that we have dedicated engagements throughout the day. This also applies to our colleagues in APAC and NA, where our afternoon badge is also the Morning Badge for Toronto and NYC.
Occasionally, I might check by 2100GMT to 1700EST, so I know that tomorrow's design delivery is safe. Our colleagues have all the information needed.
When are you available?
What available means?
What is the output/outcome of your availability?
Can people rely on your responses?
Do these responses unblock their workflow?
Do you have SPOC?
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

Status

I am leaving the status to communicate my availability. I prefer small check-ins instead of +30-minute calls. I trust my team; I believe they trust me. This allows us to have an uninterrupted workflow, keeping the notification centre delivering at hourly intervals. We are heavily relying on Apple group notifications, making every second count.
Does your team know where you are?
Do you know where your team is?
Do you know what you do?
Do they know what you do?
Why is it important? 
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

References

Slack (as well as Team) become a place we share all our external links after I realised that my colleagues shared Figma links to pages with 1600 screens without leaving comments. Hard to locate if you do not have the context and, more importantly, if the screen evolved from the original UI flows.
For the last 7 years, I always made print screens (thumbnails) and then inserted the link with the same comments that I left in Figma. Some colleagues adopted the same, and some didn’t; those who did get responses 3-5x faster thanked me over the cup of coffee as they worked to get just a little easier.
Do I know what I am reviewing?
Do I know who I am answering to?
Is my answer an action?
How do I know it has been actioned?
For more details, please visit DaS™ – Supply.

Attachments 

With few crashes I prefer not to share the files through Slack or Teams. However, I know several temas make Slack their data repository. With an extensive search function, it makes sense. It requires greeted data storage and, later, comprehensive data management. For example, you have 20+ versions of an investment deck for different types of investors. Are they all organised in Figma, Google Drive (or equivalent) or just Slack.

Search

The search function is a powerful tool. Slack has done quite a good job filtering messages, attachments, and other types of assets that refer to your conversations in the context. I avoid scrolling through endless messages. Instead, I use the search to locate keywords, and what you need I refer in seconds. This saves time and improves the productivity of my team.

C-Level

On Slack, we have our C-Leve representatives. I make sure we have a weekly engagement in the form of a short RAG report. One slide or short summary, no more than five slides in Figma called weekly summary. Clearly market
“Week 39 Design Syetam Report”
🟢 DS Deployment on time 0 bugs 
🟠 Misisng requirements deadline +2 weeks 
🔴 QA report from the last badge has 7 major faults impacting next week's delivery – need additional resources.

In conclusion, Slack can be a powerful productivity tool when used appropriately. Some set boundaries, customise their notifications, use all sorts of integrations to leverage Slack's ability to make it count as a communication tool. As much as we tried, my Slack could not tell me (communicate) my team allocation, burn rate, time spent, future resources, and client challenges that were organised in a roadmap fashion. If your Slack does it or at least gives you a sense of connection – bring it on!

My thanks go to all contributors, students, and design directors for their insight and comments, which shaped this article.

Jiri Mocicka is a London-based Designer, Trusted Advisor and author of Design at Scale™ — A method that allows individual contributors to shape the future organisation through design.

Design at Scale™ offers variety of articles in Grid Magazine, an Online Academy, and Supply. Visual stories @designatscaletm, for direct messages and questions, please reach us: @designatscaletm.

Stay tuned; thanks for reading!