As a standard operating procedure, we need to be sure everyone understands Slack status and availability.
Slack has great and easy-to-control options for setting your status and pausing notifications. This means we should always know when someone is at the keyboard, away for a break or otherwise engaged in demos or meetings.
Please take a minute to check out their articles on:
Being DND will also tell something sending you a direct message that you are DND and they can still notify you should it be necessary (please don't abuse).
There's also a /gone command that can be used to set you away AND set a timed status.
"/gone :emojiname: 60 minutes LUNCH" can be used to set you as away and give a one hour status of "LUNCH" with an emoji of your choice.
I think that our use of Flock and previous systems has trained us to have some habits we no longer need.
- Saying BRB and BACK isn't really needed in our group channels if you properly set your status/away state.
- Letting everyone know you're taking lunch or starting/leaving for the day should continue though.