Tips and Tricks

Some of these Slack fans were early adopters; they began using the tool even before Stanford Slack was rolled out by the university last spring. Other teams are new to Slack. Many have relied on the services offered by IRT's Slack experts to create a workspace and channel structure that fits the way they work.

Slack's intuitive and easy to use interface gets kudos from users who report that they didn't find the learning curve to be too steep. Stacey Kohler, administrative services administrator for the Department of Ophthalmology, said her team was quick to adopt the new platform. Getting everyone up to speed has been painless, and the transition was especially easy for anyone who has used an instant messaging platform in the workplace before.

Equally important, her colleagues were ready to embrace the new technology. “The team is very resourceful,” said Kohler. “They saw the benefits and believed Slack would be helpful, so there was very little hesitation to use the tool.”

Often it's necessary for colleagues to work together when they are in physically located in different places. With Slack, it's easy to be productive from anywhere. Mijiza Sanchez, associate dean of the Office of Medical Student Affairs, finds Slack to be an efficient way for her team to collaborate with each other, and also with staff and faculty partners throughout Stanford. Meetings in Slack keep the team aligned, even when they can’t be in the same room.

“I’m a people person – I prefer talking face-to-face. But sometimes having meetings online is just more convenient. It saves a lot time traveling of back and forth,” she explains.

Once teams are up and running, they can easily add other software tools to Slack to further streamline the workflow.

As an administrative associate for the Office of Facilities Planning and Management, Tori Kim is enthusiastic about a new onboarding process pilot that brings together Slack and Asana, a task management application.

“The Slack and Asana integration works really well when you have multiple people handling the components of onboarding,” explained Kim. “This is true because the steps must be completed in a specific order. For example, you can’t order a new employee’s equipment until they have their SUNet ID.”

Before Slack, onboarding information was passed along in a one-on-one email or at each other’s desks. “Now, we receive notifications in a Slack channel, so each team member knows when it’s time for the next step of the process. Everyone knows who's working on a problem and what needs to be done,” said Kim.

Experience is the best teacher, and these users have some words of wisdom to share with colleagues who are just getting started in Slack. Associate Director for HR and Operations for Educational Programs and Services Lisa Boesch suggests that teams preparing to join Slack start by identifying their current communication and collaboration gaps.

“If you know that going in, then you can think about how you can leverage this new technology to hopefully improve those gaps,” said Boesch.

Erik Ingelsson, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine at Stanford and principal investigator for the Ingelsson Lab, notes that Slack is a tool that works much better when more people use it. He recommends that any leaders who decide to try Slack fully commit to the tool.

 “You have to read and respond to messages and encourage others on the team to use it, as well,” Ingelsson said.

To read more about these teams and others at the School of Medicine who are using Slack productively, visit Slack in Action on the IRT Slack for School of Medicine Users webpage.