So you’re looking for a team chat tool and you’ve heard great things about Slack. You know, that nifty little app that’s taken the world of work by storm in recent times. That’s why you have decided to use Slack as your team communication tool instead of some other service such as Google Hangouts, WhatsApp or Skype. After all, who doesn’t love the friendly green alien? But now that you have signed up for Slack and created your very own team channel, things aren’t exactly running smoothly. Your teammates keep sending unimportant messages or links to videos or articles they want to share -- which isn't helpful at all. Even if you try your best to keep things organized with channels and direct messages, it feels like a complete mess after just a few days.
Here’s why you might feel this way:
- Slack is too selective If Slack is supposed to be a team communication tool, why can’t I communicate with the whole team? Why is this communication channel only available to team members who have been invited inside? As a new member who hasn’t been invited, you obviously can’t see the channel and the valuable information stored there. All you see is a big fat ‘Access Denied’ message. This means that you have absolutely no way of knowing what’s going on in your team and what your colleagues are talking about. - Slack requires too much typing Slack has revolutionized the way we communicate by streamlining communication into a series of short messages or ‘snippets’. While this is a great idea to keep things short and sweet and to avoid unnecessary rambling, there are times when a short snippet just isn’t enough. Even though you can use ‘rich’ media such as images, videos and documents in your conversations, doing so requires that you copy and paste the link. This means more time spent on clicking, scrolling, typing and pasting -- not to mention the extra steps involved in uploading the content. Besides, you will have to decide whether the media you want to share is the right one for the conversation topic. Does that snippet really require an image? - Slack doesn’t allow rich content Slack is designed to be a simple, no-frills solution. As such, it doesn’t have any built-in features such as the ability to create and edit documents in real time, or a handy ‘schedule’ feature that lets you know what has been discussed, when and by whom. Additionally, the ‘share file’ button is only suitable for PDF or image files -- which makes it difficult to collaborate on, say, a Word or PowerPoint document. This means that whenever you want to share a document that has been created in Word or PowerPoint, you’ll have to send an email to your teammates containing the file and ask them to download it. This is definitely not a convenient method of collaboration.
The search function is unreliable
If you’re looking for a specific piece of information in a sea of snippets, you’ll likely find yourself hitting the ‘ff’ key a few times before you finally get what you’re looking for. The reason is that Slack’s search function is nothing short of frustrating. The search bar is a simple field that searches the entire conversation. If you type ‘Hello’, you will get all messages that have the word ‘hello’ in them. This means that if you use the same word in a different way, such as ‘Hello, John!’, you will get the same result. In other words, the search function isn’t reliable.
It’s difficult to find the information you need
Let’s imagine that you’re a new team member and you need some information that was discussed in a previous conversation -- perhaps a due date for a client’s project. Searching the channel for the date will likely bring up a ton of snippets that have nothing to do with the date you’re looking for. This is because Slack’s search function doesn’t have any type of search filter. What’s more, the feature doesn’t even allow you to search for specific words or phrases -- only entire sentences. Searching for a specific word or phrase is like searching for a needle in a haystack. You have to scroll through all the snippets one by one to find what you’re looking for.
Slack requires too much sharing and collaborating to co-work together.
Slack is designed for small teams who will be working together on a specific project. It isn’t meant for large organizations that have multiple departments and teams in different offices. It is also not a good collaboration tool for remote teams who might be working with different clients across the country or even globally. If you try to use Slack to collaborate with a large team spread over different departments or locations, you will likely end up frustrated with the results.
Bottom line
While Slack has revolutionized team collaboration with its simple interface and helpful features, it isn’t suitable for every team and every organization. If you’re part of a small team that is working on a specific project together and you don’t have a lot of extra time to spend on unnecessary communication, Slack is definitely the team communication tool for you. However, if you’re part of a large team or you’re working with a remote team, Slack will only create more frustration and a greater sense of overwhelm. When choosing a team communication tool, make sure that it is reliable, easy to use, and scalable. Also, make sure that it can accommodate your unique communication needs and that it is compatible with your team members' devices. With these things in mind, you should be able to find the right communication tool for your team that will allow you to communicate better and more efficiently Click here
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