How to Track Your Team's Tasks in Slack
Office communication has changed a lot since the old days of paper memos, fax and even e-mails. Today, a lot of intra-company communication happens in chat apps like Slack. Message are being received, read and replied to more or less in real time, creating a never-ending stream of information scrolling across your screen.
While this can significantly increase short-time efficienty, it comes with drawbacks as well. For instance, it can easily result in open tasks being lost or forgotten, their status and responsibilities being unclear, or communication regarding individual tasks happening at many locations at the same time, resulting in ambiguity and stress. Luckily, tools exist that make tracking tasks in Slack a lot easier.
Features of Good Task Tracking Apps
- 1
Create a single point of truth.
Ambiguity can cause a lot of stress when it comes to working on tasks. Have you ever wondered whether a task that you delegated to a team member had actually been completed, but didn't want to ask again and again to avoid building up pressure? That's why single points of truths are important. Good task trackers in Slack make sure to store task status at a centralized location, allowing everbody involved to have a common understanding of a task.
- 2
Understand that productivity is highly personal.
Everybody has their own style of working, and their own idea of being productive. This can result in a general wariness when it comes to adopting new productivity tools – sometimes rightfully so, as some solutions tend to be a bit all-embracing, imposing both technology and methodology onto the user at the same time.
Successful task trackers will still allow your team members to decide themselves how they want to work on a specific issue, using their favorite techniques and working styles. At the same time, they introduce a minimum amount of standardization that increases your team performance.
- 3
Find the right mixture of push and pull.
When it comes to interacting with an application, a user can either be in the position to actively approach the app to fulfill a certain task (the user pulls information from the app), or being passive while waiting to be approached by the app itself (the app pushes the user, e.g. via a notification or other reminder). Boths directions of interaction have their advantages: the former usually feels more natural to the user and allows them to act on their own schedule, while the latter can nudge them and induce action.
Good task trackers use a mixture of both strategies: they give the user the freedom to use the features they need, when they need it, but at the same time are always equipped to take over and push the user if they are in danger of missing out on an important deadline.
Sidequest is an ideal task tracker for your team, 100% inside Slack.
A Custom Interface, Keeping Tasks in Sight
Sidequest comes with a custom user interface right inside Slack, both on desktop and mobile devices. Different from your usual Slack channels, it updates in place, always presenting users with their pending tasks.
A Personal Mix of Push and Pull
Sidequest is ready when your users are, presenting information on request when they need it. However, users can also opt-in into a daily briefing, reminding them about deadlines when they need a little extra push.
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Where do we go from here?
We all like choices, so why don't you pick! We suggest you go with one of these:
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And don't worry – we will not approach your users until they interact with the app for the first time. Until then, we'll remain in stealth mode.
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