Enterprise Grid structure & design

The structure and design of your Enterprise Grid organization isn’t meant to be static. In fact it should adapt and change over time. To start, your Enterprise Grid org should reflect how your company is structured today. Use this guide to help you get started.

Create a project team

To represent all areas of your business, assemble a cross-functional team to help design the structure of Enterprise Grid. Input from IT, human resources, internal communications, and representatives from each key department or business unit is a good place to start.

💡  Read about how to coordinate a launch team.

Design the framework

The design, structure, and size of your Enterprise Grid org will be totally unique. When thinking about what your Enterprise Grid will look like, consider major segments like divisions, brands, geographies, etc. 

With the design in place, use a combination of these methods to build your Enterprise Grid:

• Move existing workspaces to the Enterprise Grid.
• Move channels to break apart large existing workspaces into smaller ones.
• Create new workspaces on the Enterprise Grid.

Your company’s organization can have one workspace or more than 1,500! Here’s a simplified example of an Enterprise Grid framework:

• Global workspace
  Company announcements, facilities, benefits, legal, human resources, and IT
• Product and Engineering workspace
  Product research, development, design, and engineering
• Marketing and Sales workspace
  Advertising, marketing, editorial, social media, and events
• Customer Support workspace
  Support, content, documentation, and user education
• Social workspace
  Non-work related channels for special interest groups, lunch clubs, fitness aficionados, and #dogs and #cats

❓ Workspaces versus shared channels

When it comes to using shared channels between two or more workspaces, simple workflows are best. For instance, a channel like #customer-feedback is perfect for passing feedback regularly from the Sales and Marketing workspace to the Product and Engineering workspace. 

If your process is more complex and would require several shared channels, then perhaps a new workspace would be best.

❓ Ideal workspace size

We recommend individual workspaces have a maximum of 1,000 members. Smaller workspaces are not only more pleasant to work in, but they also help keep background noise and unnecessary distractions to a minimum. 

Simply share channels across multiple workspaces for things like seamless company announcements and other information that is relevant to all employees.  

Manage Enterprise Grid

Workspace evolution

If a large workspace grows too large and becomes ineffective, break it apart into smaller workspaces.

Maybe a workspace is too small and it becomes irrelevant. Archive or move the channels into different workspaces, then delete it. Make sure to rename channels when necessary and keep their purpose and topic up to date.

Workspace requests

Even though you’ve designed a framework for Enterprise Grid, new projects and teams may one day need their own new workspaces. We recommend allowing members to request new workspaces. Read Control workspace creation requests for more.

Note: Broadcast new workspaces in announcement channels. Be sure to include a detailed description of their purpose and whether they are open to join.

Shared channel requests

Slack works best when members have the flexibility to create the types of channels they need to do their work. This helps promote a culture of collaboration and transparency. If you limit shared channel creation and management to select members of the organization, we recommend creating a visible public channel to monitor shared channel requests.   

Measure and evaluate success

🏆  Define success 

First, identify what success looks like for your organization. Here are a few ways you can define success:

• Break down silos across office locations
• Facilitate the free flow of information between workspaces
• Make people, channels, apps, and information easier to find
• Facilitate the Engineering department’s communication with Support

🔍  Evaluate progress

Next, review your Enterprise Grid organization’s analytics to see how you’re measuring up. Assess whether the design of your Grid is helping you meet your success metrics. Here are some ways to measure our goals above:

• Members engage regularly in an #all-offices shared channel
• Members send messages (versus only reading them)
• Members join channels and engage with installed apps
• Members of the Sales and Support workspaces are active in a shared channel

📈  Measure and review analytics 

Review your Enterprise Grid's activity and statistics to help you gauge how things are going. Here are some examples:

• Track the adoption of Slack by reviewing your organization's statistics periodically (i.e., every six months). Look for an increase in these areas:
  • Number of sent messages
  • Number of uploaded files
  • Number of installed apps and internal integrations

• Interview users to see how Slack has improved your company's productivity. Ask users questions about their workflow:
  • The amount of time it takes to search for information
  • The amount of time it takes to switch between apps they use for work

💡  To learn more, visit our Review workspace activity and statistics article.

Tip: Consider holding a focus group or surveying members to better understand where their work is happening and whether the Enterprise Grid framework is meeting their needs. Then, adjust as needed!

Questions about launching Enterprise Grid? Get in touch with us anytime at [e-mail] — we’d be happy to help!