People Feeds
An experimental channel convention for reducing Slack DMs
Microtasks are small, non-urgent tasks that take less than 10 minutes. We think they can increase the collective stress of an organization if they're not recorded, or if they're incorrectly treated as urgent (with a DM).
Here are some examples of microtasks:
- Reviewing a document before a meeting
- Approving a small copy change
- Re-reviewing a small change on a Pull Request
- Adding someone to an account
- Providing feedback on a short blog post
At Fabric, we wanted a lightweight solution so we wouldn't get bogged down by microtasks.
- Adding a task should not trigger a DM
- It should be easy to add a task
- It should be easy to mark a task as done
- It should be easy for a new hire to learn
- It should be easy for the receiver to know the next steps
The solution we came up with was one public channel for each team member. It would follow the naming convention
#feed-<first-name>, and would serve as a feed of tasks for them.
To add a task to someone's feed, add a message that starts with todo.`todo` Bring jacket and sticky notes to the wework tomorrow
To mark the task as completed, add the ✅ emoji.
A completed task in the #feed-andrew channel.
That's it!
Adding a task is as easy as writing a Slack message. Completing it is just adding an emoji.
Because tasks are only recorded in the channel, you won't be haunted by unfinished microtasks from months ago. It's okay if you didn't complete everything. If it's important, it'll get recorded elsewhere, like as an issue.
Not everything you're working on has to be in your people feed, but having tasks from other people in there will help manage their expectations around response time.
For example, Maneesha gets
#feed-maneesha.
Everyone gets a channel. We're a small team so no one has had the same first name yet!
And you can post in your own.
`todo` Bring jacket and sticky notes to the wework tomorrow
This improves scannability and makes it clear that you're asking for a task to be completed. If you have a question, you can preface it with
question.React on the message with a ✅ to mark it as done (or as "not doing").
This makes it easier to mark tasks as completed and reduces noise. Thread conversations about each task on the original message to keep people's feeds clean.
If you're asking a question about an existing Slack message, link to it. Slack will unfurl it nicely.
We forgot to benchmark our percentage of messages in DMs before unfortunately, but we do think 7% of messages is pretty good.
How did I get feedback on this blog post? I added a message in some people feeds.
A post in #feed-maneesha.
Last modified 1yr ago