Harnessing an all-in-one collaboration tool
Amazon Alexa’s vision is to make the everyday lives of Australians easier and better, says Jen Beirne, Head of Marketing at Amazon Alexa ANZ. Whether that’s multitasking, finding recipes, controlling the lights, or playing music—Amazon Alexa is all about making its customers feel supported and organised.
Same goes for how it operates internally too. Before adopting Slack, Amazon’s Alexa team used a combination of different tools for video conferencing, messaging, collaboration and meetings. When Slack was made available, Beirne and her colleagues were quick to adopt the platform as its main tool for discussions, information sharing and wider communications.
“We’ve found that as a communication tool, Slack is engaging, easy to use and has helpful extra features, which is especially powerful when we’re working remotely and across time zones,” says Beirne.
The time saved by eliminating stand-up meetings has allowed the team to be more strategic about organising their calendars and preserve time for our weekly ‘Blue Sky’ thinking time. It’s been really powerful.
Enabling rapid-fire collaboration and fewer meetings
Beirne and her team use Amazon Chime as their video conferencing platform, so one of the major drawcards of adopting Slack was its ability to seamlessly integrate with the tool, allowing her team to keep their work in one place and eliminate context switching.
“The ability to integrate our existing tools into Slack certainly eased our transition to the tool,” she says.
With remote teams dispersed across different locations, there’s always a lot to organise, even for simple things such as coordinating time zones, out-of-office messages, holidays, leave and so on. Where emails might come back with no response, Slack enables people to see if someone’s online before sending a message. “We can also add a few emojis and personalise the message. All of those features add up to making our work lives easier,” she says.
One of the major productivity benefits of adopting Slack has been its ability to eliminate unnecessary meetings. Instead of hosting Monday morning stand-ups that could last between 30 and 45 minutes every week, Amazon Alexa’s employees can asynchronously share an update on Slack.
“In place of stand-up meetings, we get those 30-45 minutes back and can use it for other meetings that are a higher priority, or just get down to doing the work,” she says.
Slack Huddles—a lightweight and audio-first way to communicate inside a Slack channel or direct message—has become one of her team’s favourite tools because of the convenience and efficiency they enable.
“It’s a fantastic way for us to eliminate meetings where we have quick-fire questions. It has sped up our decision-making.”
“Slack has helped us to redefine that type of communication and remove the need for everything to be a meeting. We’re now able to jump on and have a quick conversation and we’re done.”
It’s what Slack gives you the opportunity to do—being able to deliver 100% against our goals. Slack has been a key contributor to enabling my team to achieve this.
Pulling up a chair with a colleague, virtually
Before Slack, when internal business intelligence teams needed to provide updates it required a face-to-face conversation to run through graphs, data and dashboards.
“In the office, I would pull up a chair next to someone’s desk and they’d talk me through it. Now with people working flexibly, Slack has perfectly filled that need,” says Beirne.
Huddles enable quick briefings and have eliminated the wait times between being formally briefed on the data in a meeting and being able to apply insights.
“We can now apply solutions and learnings in real-time after a Huddle.”
Without the formality of a meeting, Beirne and her team have found Slack also helps enable informal chat between people, which promotes rapport where ideas or issues can be discussed and ideated in the moment.
“People are more accessible. It’s broken down the barriers between people in the team but also between the broader international Amazon Alexa teams,” she says.
Gaining time for strategic, big-picture thinking
Using Slack is saving each person one to two hours a week in meetings, and across the team, that’s tens of hours every week they have gained back.
As a result, Amazon Alexa’s employees can devote time to deep work and innovation, helping Amazon Alexa’s customers discover and use more features to make their everyday lives easier.
“It’s what Slack gives you the opportunity to do—being able to deliver 100% against our goals. Slack has been a key contributor to enabling my team to achieve this.”
To ward off burnout, Amazon Alexa also encourages meeting-free periods to give its employees time and space for strategic and innovative thinking.
“You need that time for bigger thinking, which just won’t happen when you’re stuck in back-to-back meetings. So from 12 p.m until 5 p.m on Friday, no one is expected to jump on calls or attend meetings. They can use that time for planning, strategy and innovation.”
Slack helps Amazon Alexa create this space by ensuring employees can still be accessible and answer questions, without the expectation of losing thirty minutes to a meeting.
“The time saved by eliminating stand-up meetings has allowed the team to be more strategic about organising their calendars and preserve time for our weekly ‘Blue Sky’ thinking time. It’s been really powerful.”
