Keywords

1 Introduction

The use of enterprise social networking (ESN) tools, such as Slack, has become increasingly popular as they enable agile software teams to collaborate efficiently [11, 36]. ESN tools facilitate communication and networking within an organization and are specifically designed to support social interactions among employees, enabling them to share information, work together on projects, and build relationships [19]. Social interactions and networking is essential for both novice and mature agile teams when solving complex, unfamiliar, or interdependent tasks [34]. ESN tools are also called Online Collaborative Software [4], Team Communication Platforms [3], and workspace collaboration tools [4, 17].

Agile methods, known for their emphasis on flexibility, adaptability, and team collaboration, have been widely adopted in software development projects, and in recent years in large-scale settings [15, 16]. However, the specific dynamics of communication and collaboration in large-scale agile environments remain underexplored, particularly in the context of the public sector. Public sector organizations are characterized by complex bureaucracies and diverse stakeholder needs, and require efficient and effective communication tools to navigate their unique challenges. Further, the rate of innovation and the speed of development are often slower in the public sector compared to the private sector [21].

Previous research has shown that alignment and coordination between multiple teams in large-scale settings is a challenge [14, 15]. Having too many dependencies to others has been reported as a top barrier for autonomous agile teams [26]. Yet, there is still a lack of studies looking into how these challenges play out in public sector organizations. Attempting to meet this research gap, this study highlights the challenges and benefits of using a leading ESN platform, Slack, in a large-scale agile setting in the public sector, pointing to how it can help organizations improve their communication and coordination strategies.

Slack was originally designed as a cloud-based platform for team communication, but has now moved beyond just a tool for sending messages. Research on Slack has shown that for many software teams the platform has turned into a workflow hub where they use bots, meet in ad-hoc ’huddles’ and receive alerts from other tools [20]. Despite the growing use of Slack in agile software development (ASD) teams, however, there is a lack of research on how to optimize its use to improve communication and coordination, especially in a large-scale agile organizational context. This paper delves into the use of Slack within NAV, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration, which can be classified as a large-scale public sector organization. NAV’s IT department, counting more than 900 employees, has embraced Slack in their agile teams, not just as a tool for daily communication, but as a central coordination tool across the organization that supports their software development in a large-scale setting. Adopting an organizational perspective in order to grasp how Slack facilitates for or challenges alignment across the organization, we ask the following research question:

RQ: How can the use of Slack facilitate or challenge organizational alignment in a public sector large-scale agile software development setting?

In addressing our research question, we conducted fieldwork in NAV, which is an organization tasked with specific employment and welfare services. Crucial to Norway’s welfare infrastructure, NAV administers around a third of the state budget and facilitates unemployment benefits, pensions, and provide social and financial security to the nation’s citizens. The organization also employs thousands of caseworkers, which necessitates a comprehensive array of information systems designed to aid not only expert users within NAV, but also citizens, employers, healthcare providers, and family members. With its IT department being among the country’s most extensive in software development, NAV handles vast and intricate data sets, essential for both individual citizens and societal stability. The organization also plays a critical role in producing vital public and official statistics that are instrumental in shaping national policy decisions.

By conducting 13 in-depth interviews with software developers in NAV, this research seeks to shed light on the integration of Slack into the organizational culture and its impact on the everyday life and practices of software developers. We aim to address the use of Slack and identify the challenges and benefits associated with its use. Through this exploration, the study contributes a deeper understanding of how digital communication tools are reshaping agile methods in the public sector, offering insights that could guide similar organizations in optimizing their communication strategies for better software development outcomes.

2 Background

2.1 Large-Scale Agile Development in Public Sector Organizations

Studies of agile software development in the public sector have tended to focus on themes such as scaling [18], project governance [23], and organizational implications of agile adoption [27]. What differentiates a public sector context from a private sector context will depend on the country in which the study is undertaken, for instance, the extent to which commercial enterprises are involved with public goods and governmental services such as law enforcement, public education, infrastructure, and public transportation. In the Norwegian context, non-profit digitalization initiatives dominate the public sector software development.

Still, national public sector organizations have often been at the forefront of implementing new methods and technologies such as both agile [15] and continuous software engineering (CSE) methodologies [6]. Data-driven initiatives have also been a focus in Norwegian public sector bodies [10], and the country has been regarded as a “global pioneer in incorporating new ideas about organizational architecture in software development” [7]. In investigating the changes taking place during NAV’s digital transformation in the years between 2016–2020, Bernhardt [9] discovered that the key factors influencing the organization were the reconfiguration of its structure to facilitate team and product area creation, an overhauled sourcing strategy that favors bringing services in-house, a move to a contemporary application platform with a flexible architecture, and a shift from traditional to agile methodologies in product development.

In another study, Dingsøyr et al. [15] enquire into how public sector organizations often can be studied as “very large-scale agile development” contexts, highlighting the intricate interplay of numerous teams with expansive duties. Dingsøyr et al. observed that the organization they studied shifted from an initial large-scale agile method that blended agile practices with project management protocols to a more evolved form that integrates contemporary ideas in software development. This evolution led to the creation of independent teams, each specialized in a different product area. Dingsøyr et al. report that this change led to a dramatic boost in the frequency of product updates, escalating from biannual to daily releases. This shift also brought about a profound change in coordination strategies, empowering teams to develop their own methods of coordination, which resulted in a streamlined process with fewer middlemen and less inter-team reliance [15].

2.2 Communication in Agile Software Development

As Bablo et al. [5] notes, communication in agile teams is not just frequent but also informal and direct, enabling rapid responses to change and fostering a collaborative environment. For a long time, communication tools such as Slack have been vital in globally distributed teams, providing an asynchronous yet real-time communication medium supporting fast feedback [25].

Recently, there has been a shift in how agile teams work because of the pandemic that forced people to work from home. As a result, more and more people are working from home for several days per week, resulting in a hybrid way of collaboration [13]. The new collaborative working mode has affected the use of communication tools and coordination mechanisms. This was reported in a recent survey that found that the percentage of people who are collocated in the same office has changed from 51.9% to 16.9%, and 80% use instant messaging tools such as Slack and Viber [28]. Santos and Ralph [35] recently conducted a study on hybrid software teams that revealed that the absence of regular face-to-face communication may cause the teams to revert to ineffective communication mechanisms, and the teams should modify their communication methods to enable more frequent interactions.

Kostin and Strode [22] emphasize that communication is not merely a facilitator but a cornerstone of agile practices, and our study hence seeks to contribute to this literature. It is through efficient communication that agile teams can ensure transparency, manage evolving requirements, and maintain a continuous feedback loop with stakeholders. In their recent work, Kostin and Strode [22] propose a theoretical model for alignment in distributed agile teams. The model consists of four elements: alignment, communication transparency, communication quality, and communication discipline, where the latter three lead to alignment if successfully executed. Communication transparency refers to the openness in sharing all essential product-related information, ensuring all team members have access to the data they need for effective collaboration, communication quality emphasizes the effectiveness, clarity, and appropriateness of the information exchanged, ensuring it is understandable for everyone involved, and communication discipline involves adhering to established communication protocols and schedules, ensuring consistent and reliable information exchange to maintain effective collaboration and alignment with project goals. Lastly, alignment refers to the degree of which team members - and in our case; organizational peers - share a common understanding and commitment to project goals, methods, and values. Alignment is crucial for coordinated action, both in distributed teams, as in Kostin and Strode’s case, but also in a large-scale agile organization where the risk of miscommunication is higher. Since the NAV developers we interviewed are all part of agile and often hybrid teams, we found this model to be a valuable lens for analyzing how they employed Slack in their everyday work.

2.3 ESN Tools

The role of ESN tools, such as Slack, extends beyond mere message exchange; they are integral in supporting the dynamic, iterative, and collaborative essence of agile methodologies. Slack was initially introduced as an alternative to traditional communication methods, such as emails and meetings, but has now become an essential tool in development environments due to its versatile and all-inclusive communication capabilities [20]. Slack was created by the American software company Slack Technologies and has been under Salesforce’s ownership since 2020. It provides both freemium and premium subscription options, featuring capabilities like text messaging, sharing of files and media, voice and video calling, and group chat functionalities to facilitate team collaboration. It can be contended that Slack has significantly influenced how software development teams interact and work together [4, 24, 29]. Especially in agile software development, Slack can help overcome inter-team communication barriers [30], lower the threshold to ask other team members for help [38], decrease task allocation dependencies and increase awareness of what others are doing [37].

The use of Slack in a multidisciplinary academic team showed that its activity mirrored social interactions and project progress, correlating with important milestones and reflecting the team’s multidisciplinary collaboration [4]. In another study, Calefato et al. [11] investigated the role of tool support in facilitating collaboration during agile development. Specifically, they focused on the implementation of a Slack workspace to enhance teamwork in agile environments. An analysis of Slack usage in engineering design teams revealed insights into team dynamics and communication patterns, such as the central role of leaders, the importance of emoticon reactions in communication, and the evolution of communication topics over time [2].

Although ESN tools facilitate synchronous communication, they also present several challenges. For instance, teams must figure out how to interact with one another inside the tool and how to balance the use of these tools with other communication forms, including meetings, emails, and phone calls [36]. It also happens that some people dominate conversations in Slack channels [32].

3 Methods and Study Design

Due to the exploratory nature of our study, we conducted an exploratory case study inspired by the approach of Runeson and Höst [31]. They outline five steps for conducting this type of study within software development research: (1) study design, (2) preparation for data collection, (3) data collection, (4) analysis of collected data, and (5) reporting. Following Walsham’s [40] methodology for interpretive case study research in information systems, we acknowledge that case studies are not designed for statistical generalization. This can be considered a limitation of case studies and qualitative research broadly. Nonetheless, the study allows for analytical generalization because it presents a method for investigating the use of collaboration tools by software developers, and the challenges they face in this regard, which is a relevant issue for software teams globally.

The data collection conducted in this study was performed as part of a large research project looking into agile software development in the public sector. The data material consists of interviews with 13 developers in NAV as well as digital observations of a large Slack channel used by almost 200 of the developers in NAV’s IT department. The company may be characterized as large-scale. Currently, NAV IT has around 900 employees encompassing more than 150 teams with developers, and operates with an annual budget of more than 100 million Euros. The employees include 30 architects, 80 designers, over 300 developers, 180 technicians (operations and infrastructure), as well as other leadership, advisory, and support positions. Each team is tasked with specific responsibilities, and the teams can select their preferred tools, technologies, and agile ways of working, thereby granting them a considerable level of autonomy. After the pandemic-related restrictions in mid-2021, the company gave people the flexibility to work from home, which many of the employees choose to do at least some days per week.

3.1 Data Collection

Of the 13 interviews we conducted, four interviews were performed face-to-face at NAV’s head office and nine interviews were held via Teams. The interviews were conducted between November 7th and December 18th, 2023, and we gave the informants pseudonyms based on their interview number (Person1, Person2, etc., shortened to P1, P2 in the following). A semi-structured approach was followed, with each interview lasting 30–60 minutes, with an average of 47 min. In the interviews, we asked developers about their relationship with work tools, how they collaborate with colleagues and what contributes to them feeling satisfied at work. Further, we asked the informants to tell us about how they use Slack, detailing how often they use it, which channels they are part of, and what role Slack plays in their collaboration with their team and others in the NAV organization. Some also shared their screen and showed us their Slack interface, so we got an even better understanding of the channels they followed and which connections they communicated with.

In addition to interviews, we were also invited to join a NAV Slack channel in the organization. We regularly checked posts and discussions on this channel during the course of the data collection and analysis, and also used it as background material for our interviews, e.g., if one informant had shared or been part of a discussion on a specific topic. We paid attention to how posts were shared and by whom, how people started discussions under said posts, and how members used emoticon reactions in specific ways. The digital observation method, which allows for continuously following and analyzing a community’s digital practices and interactions [8], was followed here.

3.2 Data Analysis

We used abductive thematic analysis to extract qualitative information through explicit codes, defined as patterns of meaning (themes) across all interview transcripts [39]. Abductive analysis enables researchers to apply established theories and concepts, as is typical in deductive analysis, while simultaneously uncovering fresh insights and perspectives directly from the data. This meant that we were constantly moving between relevant literature and data in our analysis process, allowing theory about the topic and our empirical material to mutually shape one another.

Through this process, we discovered the newly developed model for ASD communication [22], which we found to be a suitable analytical framework for our study to point at both the benefits and challenges of relying on Slack as a communication and coordination platform in a large-scale agile setting. After our initial coding process, we grouped the codes into interpretative sub-themes and subsequently into candidate themes that lend their tags from Kostin and Strode’s model. The content and meaning of the three categories were, however, shaped by our data material, which regarded Slack use in a large-scale public sector organization rather than communication in globally distributed Scrum, as in the case of Kostin and Strode. However, we did not find this to be an obstacle during our analysis; on the contrary, it enriched the analytical process by making us thoroughly discuss each finding in accordance with the model.

4 Results

This section describes the findings from our investigation into the use of Slack as an ESN tool within NAV. Our analysis draws on interviews and digital observations. The results are described following the three categories that, according to Kostin and Strode [22], support alignment for agile teams: Communication transparency, Communication quality, and Communication discipline.

4.1 Communication Transparency

It was clear from our analysis that the widespread use of Slack’s open channels was vital in fostering transparent communication between employees throughout the organization. This was especially important as many people in NAV were working from home. P5 stated: “In our team, we mostly work from home and have one office day per week. Therefore, we use Slack a lot.”

NAV IT employees were encouraged by their peers to publish messages in open organization-wide Slack channels to ensure that everyone would have access to the information they were sharing. This practice ensured that all NAV’s developers, regardless of their role or location, could be part of the conversation. Our digital observations revealed that not only the developers were using NAV’s open Slack channels: Although Slack is mostly used by NAV IT, people from other departments that are members of cross-functional development teams also have access and use it in their teamwork or to answer questions, such as leaders and people from legal department. Thus, some section managers high up in the organization were also active members, providing answers to questions, taking part in discussions, and adding emoticon reactions to other members’ posts. It was evident that there was an abundance of open channels within the NAV organization, such as for specific IDEs, front-end/back-end developers and universal design, which we also observed when interviewees showed us their Slack interfaces.

Several pointed to how the large-scale nature of the organization, meaning teams were spread out both in terms of location and product areas, made Slack’s options for communication especially beneficial: “I find that this organization greatly benefits from using Slack, as we have so many channels for so many things. I use Slack quite extensively when I have questions that we can’t automatically answer within the team, or that no one in the team can respond to. We also use Slack within the team to some extent, and we use it to communicate with our external partners, or those we depend on, or who depend on us. So we use it for communication both within the team, across the organization, and externally.”, P3 said. P10 used Slack to keep updated on what other kinds of developers in the large-scale organization discussed, and said humorously: “I think it is very valuable to have some insight into what those weird back-end developers are talking about”.

Other interviewees expressed that the transparency facilitated by Slack had not only enhanced their understanding of projects and tasks but also contributed to a more positive work environment. One developer, P8, went as far as saying Slack was so integral to his job as a NAV developer that he would consider quitting his position if the organization was to discontinue using Slack. All in all, there was a broad consensus among the developers we interviewed that the ability to easily share information and seek assistance had reduced barriers to communication, making it easier for individuals to contribute to discussions and decision-making processes. The preference for Slack over other tools like Microsoft Teams was noted by P5: “Slack is easier for joining and leaving conversations, as well as for promoting open discussions, unlike Teams.”

However, the reliance on open channels on Slack also introduced challenges for communication transparency amongst the developers. For instance, P1 noted the tendency of some developers, especially new hires, to avoid public channels: “Many find it scary to ask in open channels, so they ask me directly.” This comment points to a need for fostering a more open communication culture in the organization, that perhaps the architecture or affordances of Slack may not offer to a satisfying degree for such a large-scale organization. Another interviewee, P3, also showed concern that the less active users would not receive crucial information if all conversations and important messages were shared mainly on Slack. He said: “I have noticed that some people remind other users that it’s not certain we are all in the specific channel [they post information in], so using it as the main platform for information might not be good enough.”

4.2 Communication Quality

Slack’s features, such as being able to edit messages after they are sent, and the ability to quickly share files or have conversations through a huddle - the platform’s possibility for calling up people instantly in the same way as through Zoom or Teams - supported the quality aspect by allowing for detailed discussions without overwhelming the main communication channels. Our observations of a large NAV Slack channel showed that it was frequently used for things such as sharing new research about relevant technology, tips on how to solve common issues, and discussing the use of new features. We saw that the use of specific emoticons as reactions to someone’s posts, oftentimes uploaded GIFs not provided by Slack’s regular emoticons, also added to the quality aspect. It not only provided a way to be creative and foster shared, organization-wide cultural expressions, but also a way for NAV employees to tailor precise reactions to their peer’s utterings, avoiding misunderstandings. See an example in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.
figure 1

Reactions to a post in a NAV Slack channel

Full size image

Another crucial point for ensuring quality communication across a large-scale organization consisting of many teams and dependencies, is the possibility of communicating quickly and to-the-point. The real-time nature of communication on Slack facilitated a degree of promptness that is difficult to get using alternative platforms such as email, and the use of Slack for frequent communication and support to other teams was a recurring theme in the interviews. One interviewee, P6, also told us how his team was using Slack for an easy and accessible way of note-taking during meetings: “We have a good routine for sharing things that happen on Slack; we are good at writing minutes [in a team channel]. We write simple, short documents where we try to condense what we have actually agreed upon to develop, what the goal is, and how we want it in the team. We try to be more conscious about this documentation.” This shows how Slack’s different options for use could inspire NAV teams to think innovatively with regards to how they implemented agile thinking into their everyday development process.

The rapid exchange of information also meant that the interviewees spent a lot of time on the platform, however. When asked about the time spent on Slack daily, P1 humorously responded, “I wouldn’t even want to know. But I guess in the course of an hour, maybe 15 min is on Slack.” Despite the benefits of Slack for communication quality and quick responses, then, the platform’s user friendliness also came with an expectancy of developers in the organization “always” being available. P1 talked about how a life without Slack would have been “lovely” because he then would have more time to program. But he also reflected on how much his time spent on Slack helps others: “I would probably have been more productive on paper. Because then I would have programmed a lot more. But I believe a consequence would be that someone else would have been less productive.”

P4 further elaborated on the frequent use of Slack, “Our team has a dedicated Slack channel. I spend a lot of time on Slack even after work hours. It’s essential for staying updated, but it can be overwhelming.” This quote was echoed by P9 who had “muted” several channels to not be disturbed when programming: “There’s always a lot of stuff going on [in the channels], and like... It’s often just a distraction, I think, a lot of what’s going on. It would probably be good to be shielded from it now and then. I think I’ve gotten better to just ignore it a bit.” This quote also points to that what may be useful to one NAV developer in one part of the organization, might be merely a disturbance to another employee in a different team. P13 had turned off notifications from other people but still received notifications from integrated bots: “I only have notifications from Github, Dependabot, and pull requests. I get notified when someone opens a pull request where one of the dependencies is out of date. I wish there were fewer notifications, but I really appreciate knowing this immediately.”

4.3 Communication Discipline

We found that Slack’s structure with channels and threads fostered a disciplined approach to communication and coordination that also facilitated ad-hoc communication. For instance, P5 said: “We create threads for what we need, in addition to using huddle a lot for video. So, it’s a common practice that one person starts a huddle, writes a topic, or adds a topic, and then whoever wants can join. It’s not a meeting, it’s not like you call people in. It can be a two-second agreement”.

However, as touched upon in Sect. 4.1, although NAV’s developers encouraged each other to conduct their conversations in open channels, not everyone was comfortable with this. As a consequence, some experienced developers took on the task of being available for questions and responding quickly: “I often provide support in open channels [especially to] new employees and summer interns”, remarked P1. He was among those of our informants who saw themselves as ’Slack mentors’ for new hires and younger developers. Thus, for new employees, informal Slack conversations with more experienced developers were an important part of their onboarding process into NAV, seeing as Slack use was a given among the IT employees. P12, who had over 10 years of experience as a developer, explained that he had the impression that the younger employees, or “the chat generation” as he put it, seemed to appreciate that communication amongst the team primarily took place over Slack. He said: “[Team communication] happens mainly on Slack, even if we are all present at the office. The exception is if we program together”. This also meant that it was easier to go back and recall earlier conversations with colleagues, and keeping track of tasks.

That Slack use quickly became part of their everyday lives as NAV IT employees was also underscored by the younger interviewees. P2, who had only worked in the organization for one month, told us that although he had not received any informal introduction to using Slack upon starting working at NAV, he was ’learning by doing’ and had already figured out many norms in regard to Slack use in the organization. When asked about the response time for answering people’s messages he said: “I reply within an hour. Or less. An hour is kind of a long time. It depends a bit on who it is, though.”

Although we were informed that guidelines for Slack use had been developed at some point and for certain channels, none of the developers we interviewed mentioned these. Nevertheless, it was evident that practices for use were ingrained in the organizational culture, and an integral part of learning the agile way of working in the organization. P5 contrasted Slack with other communication tools, noting a preference for Slack due to its ease of use and less formal nature, and hence making it easier to work in a disciplined manner: “It’s easier to join and leave conversations on Slack, which promotes open discussion.” That Slack use facilitated for disciplined working was underlined by P3, although he also included a word of caution with regard to choosing channels wisely: “There are lots of different channels and you need to select with care. It can be overwhelming, so initially you might start the wrong place, but then you just get pointed in the right direction.” This strategy reflected a broader need among software engineers in the organization to balance accessibility and focused work.

5 Discussion

In this study, we investigated how software developers use the ESN tool Slack in a large-scale agile organization in the public sector. Previous studies have pointed to how several communication practices are crucial to alignment in large-scale agile software development, including ad-hoc, oral, formal, and informal communication [15, 16]. The results of our study shed light on how Slack facilitated cross-organizational communication and coordination in NAV, but also in some ways created new challenges for the employees in the company. We now return to our research question: How can the use of Slack facilitate or challenge organizational alignment in a public sector large-scale agile software development setting?

While Slack offers a flexible platform for both formal and informal interactions, managing the balance between constant connectivity and productive work emerges as a key challenge. Our findings suggest that establishing clear expectations is needed in order to secure communication transparency across both the teams and the NAV organization as a whole, supporting the findings of Calefato et al. [11]. While it is crucial to expect employees to employ the same ESN tools in similar ways, such as being present in common channels, we found individual patterns of use such as a reluctance to post in open channels or respond to messages after work hours among some informants. Following Kostin and Strode, it can be argued that creating a safe environment for communicating transparently in agile teams is crucial [22], yet simultaneously some common user rules that may be tailored to individual teams would be beneficial for fostering a cross-organizational communication culture. As many teams were hybrid, meaning that team members were often working from home [33], this is especially a central point to consider.

In order to establish the best possible communication quality while using ESN tools, our findings point to how distinguishing between formal and informal information can be useful, carefully considering what information can be shared e.g., through an ad-hoc huddle, or would rather fit in writing in an open channel that can be found by others at a later point. By doing this simple exercise, cross-organizational communication can be enhanced, securing conciseness and clarity of the exchanged information. As some informants pointed out, important news and knowledge could get lost in Slack threads, and messages in some channels did not reach the right people. This corresponds to what Azarove et al. [4] underline; some people may not use Slack often, meaning that they might get distanced from the team’s ’core’ members as well as lose out on crucial information. It seems essential for employees, then, to establish clear guidelines on the appropriate usage of Slack, including posting important and formal information in allocated channels, at the right time, and using clear and concise language.

Lastly, to foster a common organizational communication discipline, employees should be given managerial support in ensuring optimal ESN use. As our study shows, using Slack had become part of everyday life as a developer in NAV. Although there existed some Slack user guidelines in the organization, these seemed to be not communicated to all developers, and it was thus up to each new employee to learn the Slack communication norms, perhaps with the help of self-appointed Slack mentors who again would have their own individual approach to Slack use. As the study by Stray et al. [36] underlines, there are clear differences in how experienced and less experienced developers utilize Slack, which could cause misunderstandings and lack of alignment in large-scale agile contexts. We recommend all new hires be taught and made aware of how to use ESN platforms both within the team and among the organization as a whole as part of the onboarding process. This highlights the critical role of managerial support in facilitating effective cross-organizational communication, which, in turn, would ensure a disciplined and consistent use of organizational ESN tools.

6 Conclusion and Further Work

In this study, we interviewed 13 developers working in a large-scale organization about their use of the ESN tool, Slack. We found that Slack was beneficial for communication transparency, as it fostered open and responsive communication among the developers. Slack facilitated transparent communication between employees, especially when the employees used open channels. However, some developers, especially new hires, avoided open channels in the beginning, which points to a need for onboarding developers in the communication norms and creating a safe environment. Overall, the interviewees were satisfied with the quality of communication on Slack. The platform’s features, such as the use of threads, being able to edit messages after they are sent, and the ability to quickly share files or have conversations through a huddle supported the quality aspect by allowing for detailed discussions without overwhelming the main communication channels. The consistent and habitual use of Slack had also created clear patterns of communication discipline among the NAV’s developers. However, the frequent exchange of information also meant that the interviewees spent a lot of time on the platform, both in fear of losing out on crucial information and due to the eagerness of participating in exciting conversations. It was thus clear from our findings that Slack was employed not only by necessity, but also due to fostering creative expressions and providing entertainment.

In future research, it is crucial to delve deeper into the team-level dynamics of utilizing ESN tools and examine how bots and integrations are implemented in such tools within large-scale agile settings. Additionally, finding the right balance between responding swiftly while avoiding constant distractions is a topic that requires deeper understanding, as many developers saw this as a central hurdle in their Slack use. Research suggests that developers are more adept at avoiding interruptions and managing them effectively when they do pair programming compared to solo programming [12]. Therefore, investigating how pair programming affects Slack use could provide valuable insights. Moreover, employees have a noticeable tendency to frequently check Slack, leading to potential distractions. Given that self-initiated task switching, such as checking Slack for updates, is found to be more disruptive than external interruptions, such as an impromptu huddle [1], this aspect warrants further investigation.