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.
We came up with People Feeds, inspired by On Deck's async channels.
Our Goals
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 to link to a Slack channel or Issue Room
It should be easy for the receiver to know the next steps
The People Feeds Solution
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.
To mark the task as completed, add the ✅ emoji.
That's it!
What we liked about People Feeds
Simple read and write
Adding a task is as easy as writing a Slack message. Completing it is just adding an emoji.
Self-expiring
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.
More transparency
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.
The People Feed Rules
Everyone gets a people feed
For example, Maneesha gets #feed-maneesha.
Post in anyone's feed
And you can post in your own.
Tasks should start with `todo`
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.
Use ✅ to mark as done
React on the message with a ✅ to mark it as done (or as "not doing").
One task, one message
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.
The Results
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.
Let us know on Twitter if you use People Feeds to reduce DMs at your company. We'd love to hear!
