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Transparent Collaboration: The Key to Slack's Success
Technology Category
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Hybrid Cloud
- Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries
- Equipment & Machinery
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
- Sales & Marketing
Services
- Hardware Design & Engineering Services
The Challenge
Slack, a software company based in San Francisco, faced the challenge of maintaining a transparent and collaborative design process as it grew from a startup to a company valued at over 5 billion dollars. The company's product, a communication platform, necessitated an open and inclusive design process. The challenge was to ensure that all stakeholders, including the executive team, product managers, engineers, and designers, were involved in the design process from the early stages. This was crucial to ensure that the product remained user-friendly and continued to delight customers, a key factor in Slack's rapid growth.
About The Customer
Slack is a software company based in San Francisco, California. It has grown from a startup to a company valued at over 5 billion dollars. The company's product is a communication platform that is used by businesses of all sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. Slack's focus on designing an amazing user experience has been a key factor in its rapid growth. The company invests heavily in its design teams and uses its own product as a critical part of the design process. Slack's design process is transparent and collaborative, involving all stakeholders from the early stages.
The Solution
Slack implemented a transparent design process that involved all stakeholders from the early stages. The process began with yearly and quarterly planning, where the executive team and product managers collaborated on a broad product roadmap. This was followed by a formal project kickoff, which involved setting up a project channel in Slack and a preliminary design brief. The discovery phase involved exploring the tech involved and working through early concepts. The design work was then reviewed within the product pillar group during design critiques and shared with the project team, greater design team, and 'product board'. In situations where a big product change could be complicated or controversial, Slack ran a product workshop with the head of the pillar group, and other leadership, to ensure everyone understood the scope of the problem and potential repercussions. The team then prototyped new feature flows iteratively, using InVision and other products. Towards the end of the product development process, a comms/marketing/messaging channel was set up, and there were Platform Demo Days every 2 weeks to present progress on specific projects company-wide.
Operational Impact
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