We should pay our gratitude to services like Slack for the rise of Picoservices (that's the pieces tinier than Microservices and Nanoservices). Why? Well choosing to work with pico sized services is the only way to not get stuck in endless, non effective design talks in collaborative channels. Instead of having to come to a team consensus and maybe having more than one person to work on a service. We make the scope so tiny that it most absolutely can be managed by one person and also small enough to be rewritten 100 times in a week.
OK, I'm probably to old. Because I think these "remote work enabling tools" sometimes is a pain in the ..."tush". I like to be in a room with a whiteboard with my peers. I like being able to see peoples body expressions. I like to be able to see and hear what is not being said or written. That is something I don't get from instant messaging tools.
Also, the expectations a messaging tool brings are insane. It can give a feeling of trying to outrun an avalanche in skiing boots. And this with your knees tied together. Sure I can mute it etc. But I can not mute the expectations that comes with it. Always there. Always available to take part. Well not entirely true. Because I (me) have no problems with being looked upon as that "odd person" that uninstalled the app, just to be absolutely sure not to be bothered while actually trying to produce something.
You should of course take all this with a pinch of salt. They are great tools. Slack in particular. We just really, really, really need to learn living with them. Always available is not an option. And we need to accept that they can not replace live interactions.
Happy slacking, slackers,
//Daniel