Carl – Project Lead

Meet Carl. He's a Project Lead at D2, a design thinking agency. Carl's team is developing a new workshop, and he wants to increase the speed at which they can execute. He decided to roll out Slack to his project team of 10 on the Standard plan. Here's how he did it.

🔍  Foster an innovative environment

Carl's primary goal was to increase his team's speed of execution. To do this, it was important that everyone on the team had a full view of each other's work, allowing them to make faster decisions, and iterate more effectively.  

1. He encouraged use of public channels.
2. He made sure information was discoverable.
3. He had leadership model open communication.

Step one 👉

Step two 👉

Step three ✅

1. He encouraged use of public channels

• To increase visibility, users at D2 were encouraged to do as much work as possible in  public channels.
• To reduce friction, Carl chose to allow  Everyone, except guests to create new channels.

⚙  Try it out! Customize your channel management settings.

2. He made sure information was discoverable

• Carl worked with his team to create  channel naming guidelines, ensuring information was organized and discoverable.
• Carl communicated that private channel data was wholly undiscoverable, thus making  public channels all the more important.
• When a team member rolled off of his project, Carl was happy to know that the messages and files of   deactivated users, would remain in Slack, maintaining the integrity of D2's archive.  

⚙  Get started! Create channel naming guidelines for your workspace.

3. He had leadership model open communication

• Carl modeled open communication, sharing important updates and asking for feedback in public channels. 
• He set up an #exec-ama channel, where employees could engage directly with his leadership team in an open forum.

⚙  Engage leadership! Explore how to use Slack for executives.

👥  Accelerate healthy adoption

Carl expected there to be some trepidation about moving to a new tool. He proactively communicated the value of this change, and ensured users were well-supported.

1. He communicated the why, what, and how of the move to a more transparent style of communication.
2. He leveraged leaders and champions across the company.
3. He ensured users had the support they needed.

Step one 👉

Step two 👉

Step three ✅

1. He communicated the why, what, and how

• Carl sent communications to all users who would be affected by the change, explaining why the change was taking place, what they could expect, and how they could ensure minimal interruption to their work.

⚙  Get started! Craft an effective launch email.

2. He leveraged leaders and champions across the company

• He used the analytics page to identify a group of  power users, and invited them to help guide the rollout as champions.

⚙  Try it out! Explore the Analytics page for your workspace.

3. He ensured users had the support they needed

• He set up a #slack-help channel for users to ask questions. Champions are on hand to provide answers and troubleshoot.
• He created an FAQ to clarify key areas of concern for users. For example, he assured users that Slack Admins do not have visibility into DMs between users.

⚙  Get started! Create a #slack-help channel in your workspace.

🎯 Customize security settings 

While Carl's security team required visibility into where and with whom D2’s data was being shared, they were committed to keeping as much power as possible in the hands of users.

1. He assigned roles strategically.
2. He built an app approval process.
3. He kept retention policies to a minimum.

Step one 👉

Step two 👉

Step three ✅

1. He assigned roles strategically

• Owners: He made himself the Owner, and took responsibility for both the overall administration of Slack, and the workspace's billing.
• Admins: He appointed two Admins, who were charged with fulfilling operational tasks, such as re-naming channels and inviting guests.
• Guests: He created a #request-guest channel, to enable his team to invite their clients into specific channels.

⚙  Try it out! Make changes to user roles.

2. He built an app approval process

• JIRA and Google Drive are core to D2's tech stack, so Carl proactively  whitelisted these applications, making them available for all users to install.
• To control the installation of additional apps, Carl enabled the  Approved Apps feature, and added his security team as App Approvers to vet new requests.

⚙  Get started! Set up an app approval process.

3. He kept retention policies to a minimum

• He worked with his Infosec team to have D2's retention policy lifted for data in Slack, allowing them to take full advantage of the searchable archive.
• For channels with extremely sensitive data, he set channel-specific retention policies, ensuring only data in those channels would be deleted. 
  

⚙  Get started! If required, configure a retention policy for your workspace.

🏆 Get certified 

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