Enable access for users beyond X-gov Slack

[Katrina-Birch]

Brief

Slack platform is a vital and widely used way for digital teams to communicate, regardless of whether it's the approved messaging platform in a department. The way that access to XGov Slack is set up hinders the team's ability to communicate out to our users and for the DS community to communicate with each other. We are unable to influence this, however we can make use of Slack workspaces in individual departments. Slack admins are generally motivated by the desire to facilitate communication and initial conversations indicate that they will support our efforts.

Epic lead

Katrina

Driving role(s)

Katrina

Further

Trang, for review

Stakeholders

Wider team, Slack admins

Tasks

Beta Give feedback

1. Continue reaching out to Slack workspace admins in other departments. Prioritise the most important departments for engagement. Target departments using Frontend, - biggest number of citizen facing services, those most used by citizens? Top 10? We already have DEFRA, DWP, HO. We need HMRC and ...? (Revised - we will only contact departments we've already spoken to)
2. Investigate how digital teams in DSIT are communicating and if possible, build this into the comms plan in the future. As we move into this department, it will be useful to know how we can communicate broadly. It would also be useful to know what kind of (if?) services are being created in the department and whether they use Frontend. (Revised: stretch goal for this cycle)
3. Determine - what comms will be sent out from devs annually
4. Determine - what comms will be sent out about community events annually
5. Determine - what comms will be sent out about research events annually
6. Create comms plan. This will outline what we want to share and when. It won't outline how it will be shared. Each workspace is structured differently and will be able to share information differently. It's up to workspace admins to decide how to do that but it's helpful for them to know what information is coming and when.
7. Host Slack admin roundtable to share the comms plan. (Revised - not for this cycle)
8. Record how workspaces want to manage information. Aiming for a way which minimises the reliance on named individuals remaining in post, the maintenance of a contact list and process which doesn't entail the extra burden of moderation for the Design System team or workspace admins
9. Amend the comms plan. The comms plan will become the working document which outlines how workspaces manage the information we share and tells us what we need to do and when. The aim is for channels of communication to be consistent and not reliant on individuals

Deliverables

Beta Give feedback

1. Identify Slack admins across government and secure agreement to share Design System related content in their channels
2. Identify best method of communication with other teams in DSIT
3. Map what digital services are being built or run in DSIT
4. Create a communications plan to better engage with our community
5. Share our communication plan with stakeholders

[trang-erskine]

@Katrina-Birch what's the update on this. If it's completed please close the ticket. If you're still working on it in the background, add it to the small stories issue