Summary
The balance between maintaining structured communication channels and ensuring critical information is shared immediately is a common challenge in platforms like Slack. While rules promote organization and reduce noise, rigid adherence can hinder urgent communications, especially in time-sensitive situations such as email deliverability incidents (e.g., unexpected blocklistings or major service outages).
The key lies in developing guidelines that allow for flexibility when necessary, ensuring that essential updates reach the right people without causing undue panic or disrupting established workflows. This often involves defining what constitutes an 'urgent' issue and establishing clear protocols for its communication, potentially bypassing standard channel rules while still maintaining a degree of order.
Key findings
- Balancing rules and urgency: Strict channel rules, while beneficial for organization, can impede the rapid dissemination of crucial information during emergencies or critical deliverability issues. Flexibility is often paramount in such scenarios.
- Impact of rigid policies: Overly rigid communication policies can lead to frustration among users, especially those dealing with time-sensitive problems, potentially causing them to disengage from important channels.
- Importance of quick updates: For deliverability professionals, receiving immediate updates on issues like unexpected email blocklistings or service outages is vital to mitigate panic and resolve problems swiftly. This highlights the importance of timely communication when considering email deliverability issues.
- Community benefit vs. individual preference: Even when annoyed by specific rules, individuals might prioritize the collective benefit of staying informed on critical matters over their personal preferences for channel etiquette.
Key considerations
- Defining urgency: Clear guidelines should be established for what constitutes an 'urgent' issue that warrants a deviation from standard channel rules. This can prevent misuse and maintain channel integrity.
- Alternative communication methods: Consider implementing alternative, predefined methods for urgent communication (e.g., specific channels, direct mentions) that are understood by all team members and allow for immediate alerts (similar to how appropriate response times are crucial in other contexts).
- Educating users: Educate team members on the rationale behind channel rules and the protocols for urgent communications. This transparency can reduce frustration and increase compliance, as highlighted by Slack's advice on collaborative kindness and etiquette.
- Regular review of policies: Periodically review and adjust Slack channel rules based on feedback and evolving needs to ensure they remain effective and supportive of both structured and urgent communications.
What email marketers say
Email marketers often navigate a fine line between adhering to internal communication guidelines and ensuring that critical, time-sensitive information, particularly related to email deliverability, is disseminated without delay. Their primary concern is often the rapid spread of news that could impact campaigns or sender reputation, making flexibility in communication rules a high priority.
Marketers frequently express frustration when rigid channel rules hinder the timely sharing of information that could prevent or mitigate significant issues, such as a domain being added to an email blocklist. They advocate for practical solutions that prioritize the immediate needs of the team during crises over strict adherence to general etiquette.
Key opinions
- Prioritizing crucial information: Marketers believe that when urgent issues, like a major deliverability problem, arise, the primary goal should be to ensure critical information reaches relevant stakeholders immediately, even if it means bending standard channel rules.
- Frustration with rigidity: There is a clear sentiment among marketers that overly strict communication protocols in platforms like Slack can be counterproductive and annoying when dealing with high-stakes, time-sensitive situations.
- Community benefit: Despite personal annoyance, marketers recognize the value of staying in channels where important, urgent information is shared for the benefit of the broader community and their own operations.
- Acknowledgement of effort: Marketers appreciate the efforts of those who provide critical updates, especially when done under pressure or outside regular hours, acknowledging the importance of such contributions to maintaining email health.
Key considerations
- Clear 'urgent' indicators: Teams should define clear keywords or methods (e.g., using @channel or @here sparingly) that indicate a message requires immediate attention and justifies a deviation from standard threading, ensuring that crucial updates are not missed (see Workplaceless on async communication for more).
- Balancing rules and crisis: While general rules promote order, communication protocols should build in exceptions for genuine crises. The goal is to keep communication flowing effectively, even when tension is high.
- Empathy for communicators: Recognizing the effort and stress involved in communicating urgent issues, especially outside of normal working hours, fosters a more supportive team environment.
- Adopting best practices: Reviewing best practices for using threads in technical Slack channels can help teams develop a more nuanced approach to urgent communication within existing structures.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks suggests that thread enforcement, while generally good practice, can become incredibly annoying when urgent, real-time information needs to be shared. They noted getting up at 4 AM to fix a critical issue and needing to communicate updates to people who would panic. They felt that rules should definitely have some flexibility in such situations, and the rigid application of threading for immediate updates almost made them leave the channel, despite the value of the shared information.
Marketer view
Marketer from Email Geeks emphasizes that the intention behind channel rules is not to be draconian, but to maintain order within the group. They reiterated appreciation for hard work in sharing critical updates, even if it goes against the usual rules. They urged against leaving the channel, highlighting the importance of community access to crucial information.
What the experts say
Experts in email deliverability and communication management consistently emphasize the critical need for agile communication strategies, especially when unforeseen incidents arise. Their insights focus on practical approaches to ensure that urgent messages cut through the noise without compromising overall channel hygiene.
They advocate for predefined crisis communication plans and clear indicators of urgency that allow teams to react swiftly to issues that could have significant impact on email campaigns or sender reputation. This often means establishing exceptions to general rules for truly time-sensitive matters.
Key opinions
- Necessity of flexibility: Experts agree that communication rules, while important, must include provisions for flexibility to accommodate truly urgent situations. Rigid adherence can be detrimental during crises, such as a sudden domain blocklisting.
- Mitigating panic: Timely and direct communication of urgent issues helps prevent widespread panic among team members, allowing for a more organized response to problems that could impact overall deliverability.
- Practicality over dogma: In critical moments, the pragmatic need to inform and resolve overrides strict adherence to stylistic rules like threading, especially when the information is of paramount importance to an entire community.
- Community well-being: The long-term health of a communication channel relies on ensuring that users feel they will receive crucial, timely updates, even if it means occasional rule adjustments.
Key considerations
- Crisis communication protocols: Develop clear, pre-defined protocols for communicating urgent issues that allow for rapid dissemination without causing chaos. This might involve designated emergency channels or specific alert procedures.
- Trust and transparency: Foster an environment of trust where channel members understand that rule deviations for urgent matters are legitimate and infrequent, rather than a loophole for general announcements.
- Moderator discretion: Granting moderators or designated communicators (e.g., those responsible for handling transactional email replies) the discretion to bypass standard rules for genuinely urgent issues can streamline crisis response.
- Post-crisis review: After an urgent issue has passed, review how it was communicated and gather feedback to refine future protocols, ensuring continuous improvement in rapid information sharing.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks indicates their past frustration with rigid rules that prevented them from quickly sharing critical deliverability updates. They emphasized that they had to get up at an early hour to fix something and knew people would panic, hence the urgent need for communication. Their experience underscores the direct conflict between strict etiquette and the real-world demands of crisis management in deliverability.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks confirms that the issue of channel rules versus urgent communication has been resolved through discussion. This implies that a balanced solution or understanding can be reached when conflicting needs arise. It suggests that dialogue and negotiation are key to implementing flexible communication protocols.
What the documentation says
Official documentation and best practice guides for communication platforms like Slack often provide frameworks for establishing channel rules, but also implicitly acknowledge the need for flexibility in urgent scenarios. They tend to advocate for a balance between structured communication and the agility required for crisis management.
Documentation typically advises organizations to define their own communication protocols, including how to handle exceptions for critical information, rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all rigid system. This allows for adaptation to specific organizational needs and emergency response strategies.
Key findings
- Guidance on urgency: Official documentation often provides advice on how to handle urgent matters, typically suggesting specific mentions (like @here or @channel) for critical announcements, reserving them for truly important information.
- Emergency response capabilities: Platforms like Slack highlight their governance and risk-management capabilities that are flexible enough for emergency response scenarios, indicating that built-in features support deviations from routine for crises (as shown in Slack's emergency response resources).
- Culture of default posting: Documentation suggests fostering a culture where channel posting is the default, reserving direct mentions for specific requests or urgent matters, thereby creating a clear distinction for immediate communication.
- Avoiding ineffective channel selection: Poor channel selection for urgent, complex, or sensitive messages can reduce clarity. This implies that different channels or methods are needed for varying levels of urgency, a concept applicable when managing communication around topics like high email volume during peak sending events.
Key considerations
- Customizable policy templates: Organizations should utilize customizable Slack guide policy templates to tailor communication rules, including specific provisions for urgent issues, to their unique needs and guidelines.
- Clear 'urgent' keyword: Designate a specific keyword, such as urgent, that team members can use to indicate a message does not require an immediate response, but will draw attention for critical situations where one is needed.
- Training on communication protocols: Train employees on the established communication protocols, ensuring everyone understands when and how to use emergency communication channels or methods. This helps prevent communication 'Slack holes' where important information is overlooked.
- Integrated internal communication: Integrate Slack into a broader internal communication strategy, using it for quick updates, while other channels (like email for transactional notifications) handle more detailed or less urgent information.
Technical article
Documentation from Slack explains that a robust platform offers governance and risk-management capabilities that are flexible enough to meet an organization's diverse needs, including emergency response. This design principle allows for adaptive use during crises. It suggests that the platform itself is built with the understanding that not all communication can follow a rigid structure, especially when urgency is paramount.
Technical article
Documentation from Slack's blog advises creating a culture where posting in a channel is the default, but using an @username mention is specifically reserved for particular requests or urgent matters. This strategy helps differentiate standard communication from critical alerts. It provides a simple, built-in mechanism for flexible, urgent communication.
Related resources
15 resources
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