Create a Guide: Managing your project's slack channel

[Olivia-Chiong]

Overview

We need to create a guide to managing your slack channel so that you and the volunteers on your project have the best experience possible and that we increase retention.

Action Items

• Gather examples of how other projects have done, adding each example as a link in the resources section (as you find them). It is really important to annotate as you go in this issue, so that if you have to stop working on the issue, its already up to date with your findings.
  • Once done, remove the "TG: Gather Examples" label and add the "TG: Draft Template" label
• Create a draft template, either in markdown format in this issue or a google doc in the product management google drive
  • Once done, remove the "TG: Draft Template" label and add the "TG: Create Guide" label
• Create a guide on how to use the template
  • Create a draft document in the old product management google drive new product management google drive>Product Management Guides
  • Once done, remove the "TG: Create Guide" label and add the "TG: Review Guide" label
• Review the guide with product management communities of practice
  • Once done, remove the "TG: Review Guide" label and add the "TG: Leadership Review" label
• Present to Hack for LA leadership team for sign off
  • Once approved, remove the "TG: Leadership Review" label and add the "TG: Place Guide" label
• Possibly create an issue template on .github
  • Include link to template under resources if you add it as a template in .github

Resources

Youth Justice Nav

• Join your project's Slack channel
  - [ ] If you cannot find it, reach out to the PM Community of Practice Lead to confirm.
  - [ ] If confirmed, create the channel by using the +Add channels link in Slack
  
• Set up meeting reminders in your channel by using the /remind function
  Example of how to use this /remind #channelname Hi team, a reminder that our team meeting is today at 2:00 pm PST.
  (Zoom link) Please provide an update in your assigned issue before the meeting. Thank you at 9AM every Saturday.
  • Create a Guide: Setting up & Deleting Slack Reminders for your project #88
• Pin important messages onto the topic of the channel so they do not get lost. Some teams pin meeting times and Zoom links.
  • Make the message that you are going to pin succinct. After about 2 weeks messages disappear and only the words visible in the pin will remain.

Special Note: Some projects will be tempted to create multiple channels to make the main channel for your project easier to read. It's easier if people just use the threading consistently. However, if you feel you really need additional channels, feel free to create them. Just document their existence for new members in your wiki and make sure to remove them if they become inactive.

Template to use per project

(add other check boxes if you find other ways they are using slack to manage)

   - [ ] meeting team link (zoom)
   - [ ] Channel Description
   - [ ] Pins
   - [ ] reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting 
   - [ ] Signup for the team

Projects to check

• 100 Automations

  • meeting team link - Looks like the team posts the team meeting link (zoom) manually before the meeting.
  • Channel Description - The channel description has their domain name in it.
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• 311 Data

  • meeting team link (zoom) - in a pin
  • Channel Description (meeting links which are same as hfla website page)
  • Pins (5 pins from 2019 to 2020)
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team (in a pin)

• Access the Data

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• BallotNav

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Brigade Organizer's Playbook

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Civic Tech Index

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Civic Tech Jobs

  • meeting team link (zoom) - different links for developers and all team
  • meeting agenda - there is a link in the meeting zoom link reminder that contains the meeting agenda.
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Civic Tech Structure

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • meeting agenda
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Data Science Projects

  • meeting team link (zoom) - set manually before meetings
  • Channel Description - in a pin
  • Pins - two pinned messages
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Design Systems

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • meeting Agenda
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Engage

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description - link to a google doc
  • Pins - more than 10 pinned messages
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting - manually done when
    necessary
  • Signup for the team

• Expunge-Assist (formerly known as Record Clearance)

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - about 10 pins since 2019
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team- explained when necessary
  • VRMS slack integration module

• Food Oasis

  • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - 5 pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• GreenEarthOS

• • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Guides

• • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - 1 pinned message
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting - reminders are set during or
    immediately after meetings
  • Signup for the team

• HomeUniteUs

• • meeting team link (zoom) - in topic
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Internship project

• • meeting team link (zoom)
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Lucky Parking

  • meeting team link (zoom) - posted manually before the meeting
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Open Community Survey

• • meeting team link (zoom) - in channel description
  • Channel Description
  • Pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• TDM Calculator

  • meeting team link (zoom) - in a pin
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - 15 pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• VRMS

  • meeting team link (zoom) - in a pin
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - 2 pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting - mentioned in the meeting
    reminder
  • Signup for the team

• Hack for LA's Website

  • meeting team link (zoom) - in a pin
  • meeting agenda - in a pin
  • Channel Description
  • Pins - 4 pins
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting
  • Signup for the team

• Youth Justice Nav

  • meeting team link (zoom) - in a pin
  • Channel Description
  • reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting - added to the slackbot zoom
    meeting reminder
  • Signup for the team

Guide drafts

• Draft Guide: Managing your project's slack channel

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

I am going to put some screenshots and notes in this issue, because I am doing a cleanup on 311's slack channel. We will need the screenshots for later making the guide examples of what no to do.

This screenshot is from the 311 Slack Channel, taken 2022-03-11. The post was created 2020-02-05. The link still works to take you to the WIKI, but they have not been updating the WIKI, so when people get there, it does not guide them to contact the correct people.

This screenshot is from the 311 Slack Channel, taken 2022-03-11. The post was created 2019-12-17. It references people no longer on the team and contains an old zoom link. Avoid using @ messages to people in pins

This screenshot is from the 311 Slack Channel, taken 2022-03-11. The post was created 2019-11-18. It references something from an agenda long since past. Pins should be for evergreen items (like an agenda issue for the entire year)

This screenshot is from the 311 Slack Channel, taken 2022-03-11. The post was created 2019-09-24.

[Evon081]

still working on this issue.
i haven't finished going through the list of projects's slack channel. Previous meeting we left off on 311. I have completed through CivicTechIndex

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

@Evon081 let's figure out what kind of guidance we need to provide to people so that they understand if they made a sub issue, it has to be linked to the main issue.

[Evon081]

I have had zoom meetings with the following PMs:

Access The Data, Lucy Chang.
Design Systems, Yasaman
100 Automations, Henry
Civic Tech Jobs, Danish
311 Data, Eric Cho
VRMS, Josh Bubar
Thomas Demoner, Expunge assist

these are my findings.

19th April
Henry Latourrette from 100 automations.

• They use it to share general updates

• They don’t have much active members because their project of updating the website is
  almost finished

• They have a main channel and small different conversations depending on the team eg. The
  dev team, the product team and the designers team . These teams communicate through
  conversations on slack.

• The above system worked for them and they didn’t see the need to create new channels

• They aren’t look to change anything for now.

• But they would like to share agenda for each meetings before the meetings. They tried once
  or twice but it wasn’t really effective.

• Because they were all updating their issue on Github they didn’t see the need to update on
  slack too.

• the problem with slack is the free version .No access to previous information.

• They never got to explore the options of voice calls . We tried it and it was cool. Maybe
  more channels should explore that

20th April
JOSH BUBAR from VRMS

• They use two teams; the VRMS channel and the VRMS tech slack channel

• The biggest thing they use the channel is for direct messaging each other and setting
  meeting links

• They don’t use much because they don’t really have product management on their team

• New members join and the team headed reaches out to them.

• They do not use slack Bot for reminders

• Slack serves it purpose for messaging and communicating with team members .

• Main challenge is that people don’t respond to messages early.

• Another challenge is the fact that messages disappear after two weeks because we don’t
  use the paid version.

Suggestion:

• When a new member joins they should be a specific template for new members to join,
  which they would implement on their channel.

21st April
DANISH from Civic Tech Jobs

• Use slack for team updates quick chats , and reminders

• They use the book mark bar for quick links

• They share screenshots and type comments or replies and reactions which brings about
  team building

• New members join Github before the slack channel. They introduce themselves and then
  someone points them to the bookmark.

• They have regular team meetings and the have weekly meetings . It works for short term
  communication.

• The system works overall really well

• He would like to see an “auto removing inactive members” feature (more for slack than
  H4LA).

• They need more engagements, for their team members to respond quickly.

• Slack is a good way to stay in touch for the team, quick responses, active engagements.

• Major challenge is not being able to see message history.

• People aren’t comfortable with some features and need to learn some things , like how to
  set reminders.

ERIC CHO from 311 data
How they use slack:

• They automate updates a day before the team meeting

• Engineers communicate with themselves within the week.

• Periodic updates

• A lot of communications happen privately by creating a thread

• They don’t have an active process for recruiting

• He doesn’t feel its an optimized process because they aren’t really producing right now .

• Right now no need for more process to be in place .

• Could be a distraction , if there are too many conversations happening.

• He doesn’t think slack is the best channel to mange recruiting and onboarding

• He feels Pins are distractions and looses value over time

Benefits:

• Anybody could find anybody and reach out to them on the team; internally or externally. Its
  good because its easier and faster
• Easy team member communication
• Looking for other other organization members in various teams.

Biggest challenge:

• is that people do not have their slack notifications on.

• Would be nice if they could set an emergency messaging system ; like time sensitive
  signals.

• People generally do not respond in time.

• He would like to see;

• best practices templates on how to write posts, proper utilization of
  threads.

• proper utilization of hurdles.

• proper introduction of new members and why they are there.

May 17th.
THOMAS DEMONER from expunge assist

Thomas sent answers to the meeting template to m Dm on slack.

These are his assertions:

• The only “systems” we put in place are reminders for each of our meetings in the project channel as well as making sure our product leadership understands we’re all responsible for timely responses to inquiries from outside interest, even if unaddressed to anyone.
• These are working pretty well for their purposes.
• At this moment we don’t plan on changing anything aside from being more proactive ourselves regarding reminders for our less frequent all hands meetings, which gets underwhelming attendance.
• Honestly, I think the only benefit of using Slack this way, as opposed to any other comm tool, is that the entire org is on the same platform and its easy to join and look in other channels. Otherwise I would not have personally chosen Slack, perhaps Discord instead - I find it much more convenient.
• Yes, I wish it were easier to import reminders from slack into our personal calendars, I feel like a platform like discord could eliminate the need to go over to zoom for meetings, and Slack (at least the plan we have for it) doesn’t allow for assigning roles to members of a channel (e.g.: engineering, product, etc.) so there’s no way to tag everyone in a message by simply tagging a role. That is annoying and silly.
• In general, our practice/strategy for slack is not very advanced or anything, we just kind of use it as needed. I personally prefer using Discord, the only thing I prefer about Slack is that I believe we can edit our profiles differently according to each org “workspace,” which we can’t do without the premium subscription to Discord. but as far as usability, I’m not a big fan of Slack, I find it pretty inflexible and I’d avoid putting a lot of practice/dependence on to it for that reason.

14th April
YASAMAN from Design systems

How they use slack:

• mainly as a communication tool.
• they insert links to their github tickets in the channel
• Share meeting links and Agendas

Challenges:

• No history of documentations because of the free plan

Recommendations:
-Things discussed should be put on in a github issue.

she generally thinks slack works for the team and it is easier and faster to reach out to team members because it is conversational.

14th April.
LUCY CHANG from access the data

-They use it to share general updates
-They have multiple channels for various teams e.g access-the-data-website, access-the-data-reseach
-The various channels isnt really functional and it should be one general general for the entire team
-it is easier to reach team members
-They share meeting links

26th May
GORDON RUBY from
-He says they do not use slack much often.
-Lucky parking has a 129 people on the channel but there are only 10 active members.
-They post zoom link and agendas and people indicate their interest to attend or not.
-He uses slack to engage new members
-They don’t really use slack to talk about work.
-They use git hub more because it helps the organize their work.

-The system works well for the team

-He would like to see more communication in the channel because People do not post in the main channel. They prefer Github and Dm’s.
-He would like that after onboarding and people join the channel they should introduce themselves automatically. With a specific template . People joining without introductions could be quite confusing.

CHALLENGES

• Some people like to do work in the background and do not like public scrutiny, which threads actually do.

RECOMMENDATIONS
-Clarity on what slack should be used for and what Github should be used for and why. A guideline should be made specifically for this purpose.
-The difference between communication in a thread and just replying in a different post should be made clear.
-Concerning security we should Set clear expectations for new people and old team members to figure out what we can post and what we can’t. Eg. Passwords to meeting.
-The guide should be clear about who should be on the channel and not. We have 129 people and only 10 active members.
-Slack is amazing and he hopes lucky-parking can use it more.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Reach out to Jessica Cheng on the hfla-site channel to meet with her. She is the former Tech Lead

[Evon081]

My meeting with
Kalyani and Abareen - community survey
Jessica Cheng - HFLA

18th June, 2022
COMMUNITY SURVEY

I had Kaylani and Ambareen in the meeting

WHAT FEATURES THEY USE:
-The community-survey team use slack majorly for reminders. Through the slackbot
However as a PM, Kaylani integrates her slack with her google calendar. Which works better for her .
-New team members join the team and the slack channel during the general Hack for LA boarding session
-They also pin important messages
-They used the video call tool before the free plan expired

IS EVERYTHING WORKING FOR THEM
-Everything works well for her as a product manager and as the team.

WHAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO CHANGE
-They would like to set up autobot to be able to set up meeting for the entire year or month, but she couldn’t fine the proper way to do it. Right now she has to do it manually every month
-They would also love it to be upgraded to a paid plan so that they could make better use of slack.

ADVANTAGES OF USING SLACK
-Easy to share documents
-Quickest way to communicate with team members.

DRAWBACKS/CHALLENGES
-Making the rooster because she needs to find their slack handles
In the case of you know what you want but you don’t know where to get it.

OTHERS
-They love the new integration with GitHub and Jira

19th July, 2022
HFLA website

JESSICA CHENG

WHAT FEATURES THE USE

• Set up reminders and post zoom meeting links
• They have separate channels eg PR channel, which is integrated with GitHub to remind people to review their issues
• Set up reminders for progress on issues
• Basically communications, team members ask questions regarding their issues.
• Github integration to be notified of events like when issues are opened etc. generally people that work on tasks during the week
• New members join through the prework issue.
• Reminders in the main channel for developers to add each other

IS EVERYTHING WORKING FOR THE TEAM

• Yes, everything works for them especially the GitHub integration
• And conversations through threads
• And every other feature works ok.

WHAT WOULD THEY LIKE TO CHANGE

• Would have loved to change the process of slack and GitHub integration through the PR process because it doesn’t show people who are assigned to issues.

ADVANTAGES OF USING SLACK

• Setting Reminders
• Communication with anyone ,wherever.
• Help team members with blockers and questions.

DRAWBACKS/CHALLENGES

• The PR integration through GitHub, trying to costumise it.

OTHERS
-The one thing about slack is the reminders.

• Love to see more app integrations

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

@Evon081 Can you write a summary of what you have found. For example:
Number of teams using Reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting (8 teams, 1 manual)

Number of teams using method

• meeting team link (zoom)
• Channel Description
• Pins
• reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting (8 teams, 1 manual)
• Signup for the team

[Evon081]

@Evon081 Can you write a summary of what you have found. For example: Number of teams using Reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting (8 teams, 1 manual)

Number of teams using method

• meeting team link (zoom)
• Channel Description
• Pins
• reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting (8 teams, 1 manual)
• Signup for the team

will do this before friday .

[Evon081]

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS FROM MEETING WITH PMS FROM DIFFERENT PROJECTS AT HACK4LA

NO OF TEAMS USING :
-zoom team link for meetings - 20 teams
-Channel description - 20 teams
-Pins - 15 teams
-Reminder to update issues 12-24 hours before meeting - 8 teams
-Sign up for teams - 8 teams

Generally, Slack has been useful to every team at Hack4LA . It has been the general medium for communication.
Albeit the fact that a lot of PMs would love to implement few changes to increase productivity.

[edwardsarah]

@Rabia2219 discuss with Bonnie how to revise issue to add slack audit info