5 signs that you’ve outgrown your work chat tool
The work chat tool that served your small team well can start to break down as you grow. What once felt seamless now creates more friction than flow.
The work chat tool that served your small team well can start to break down as you grow. What once felt seamless now creates more friction than flow.
Growing pains are a natural part of scaling, but your team's ability to communicate effectively is too important to let slide. The little inconveniences you brushed off when you were small can snowball into major roadblocks.
Here are a few signs that you've reached that point:
1. You Can’t Find What You Need
You know a conversation happened somewhere, but where? Was it in a channel? A DM? A thread buried under a dozen other messages? Search doesn’t help, and you waste time scrolling through endless chat history. Finding a key decision or file shouldn’t feel impossible.
2. No One Knows Where to Post
Does your team hesitate before posting because they’re unsure which channel is “right”? Do questions get scattered across DMs, only to be asked again in multiple places? When it’s not clear where to communicate, things get lost, duplicated, or delayed.
3. You Have to Spam Multiple Channels to Keep People in the Loop
There’s no single space with the right mix of people, so you end up posting the same update in multiple places—or creating yet another channel to solve the problem. Working cross-functionally shouldn’t mean creating noise for some of your colleagues.
4. Important Conversations Get Lost in the Noise
Critical discussions are mixed in with GIFs and random updates. Revisiting an important topic means that you have to start all over again.
5. Your Sidebar is a Mess
Your notifications are overwhelming, and your sidebar is a graveyard of channels you barely keep up with. Whether it’s a high-priority issue or someone’s lunch order, every unread message demands the same attention. You need a way to separate the signal from the noise.
What’s Next?
If these pain points sound all too familiar, it’s a sign that your team has outgrown its chat tool. You need something that scales with you—where conversations stay organized, information is easy to find, and notifications don’t become a source of stress.
The way your team communicates shouldn’t hold you back. It should help you move faster. See how we're rethinking work chat at Glue.