How Slack Harms Projects
Slack isn’t the issue. It’s how you use it.<p>&gt; 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.<p>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.<p>&gt; You must stop to check your messages at least twice an hour.<p>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.<p>&gt; ALL WORK, including troubleshooting issues, fixing bugs, and answered questions should go through the Product Owner.<p>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.<p>The problem isn’t Slack. Its never Slack. It’s the lack of discipline of people using it.<p>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.<p>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”.<p>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.