Slack

Our Slack team is our virtual home on the internet. It’s where much of our day-to-day discussion happens, both in real-time and asynchronously. We have almost 700+ public channels, including:

• #general – general discussion, posts (not comments) from the Updates and Announcements H2s post into this channel.
• Team channels – #company-people, #commercial, #product, #company-finance, #company business etc.
• #community – discussion relating to communities we belong to and events employees are attending.
• Event channels – when there is a large group attending an event, e.g. #events-wceu
• Client projects – each client project has a channel for clients and an internal one for us.
• Retreat channels – #retreat, #retreat-planning, #retreat-flights
• Temporary channels – for one-off events or projects. Set up any that you need.
• Location-based – currently #local-matlock, #local-brighton, #local-london, #local-tokyo, #local-northerners and #local-uk.
• Special interest channels, including #interests-gaming, #healthy-minds, #interests-health, #interests-food, #interests-pets.

There are also some other interest groups which are private which you may want to join. You can message the person listed in brackets to be added if you are not already.

• #interests-ladies (Siobhan)
• #interests-lgbtqia (Kirsty)

Slack Profile

To help people have an overview of what you do and when you work, it’s important that you keep your Slack profile up to date. Your profile should include:

• Your name
• Your photograph
• Your job title or role at Human Made
• Timezone
• Your normal working hours
• Your email address
• A link to your How I like to work document

You can add any other information that you think is important.

N.B. The information on your Slack profile is also visible to outside guests and clients so be aware that having your phone number on there for instance might mean you receive phone calls from people outside of HM.

Slack Guidelines and Etiquette

Below are some guidelines and company-wide etiquette around Slack usage:

• If you’re at work and available, be on Slack.
• You should update your status or use Do Not Disturb mode to indicate to the team that you are unavailable.
• It is fine to turn off Slack if you want to focus on your work. If you do so make sure your team is aware and has an alternative way to contact you.
• Don’t expect immediate responses from your team members, especially if they are in DND mode.
• Only send a notification when someone is in DND if it is an actual emergency.
• Important discussions should happen on the H2 so that they don’t get lost. If an important discussion happens in Slack you should recap it on the relevant H2.
• Use @here instead of @channel to get a room’s attention. This ensures that people who are offline and perhaps asleep don’t receive a notification. Only use @channel if you really need to get in touch with everyone.
• If you wish, you can Integrate third party services (i.e. GitHub, Trello, Pocket, Swarm, etc.) with Zapier.

Some tips for staying on top of Slack

Slack can be overwhelming, especially if you are not used to communicating in this way. There are multiple channels with 24/7 conversation happening in many of them. It’s important that you manage the flow of incoming communication so as not to be overloaded. These tips should help:

• Favourite important channels.
• Mute channels that are not required for the work you’re doing.
• Suppress notifications for @channels and @here mentions in those channels where they are used with relative freedom.
• Use sections to group your channels together.
• Do a routine decluttering: leave channels that are not interesting or relevant anymore.
• Be aware that you can turn off Slack or use DND mode. You should do so to help you focus.

Remember that you should have 2 Factor Authentication turned on for Slack.

Grouper

Grouper is a Slack app created to help manage groups.

Commands:

Slack themes

You can customise the colour scheme of the left sidebar, typically to match the company or product brand. Just go to the top left menu, Preferences → Themes and select an available theme or enter your custom colour combination.

Some examples:

Human Made

#9D0A22,#6D0718,#F11C3F,#FFFFFF,#4A3C30,#FFFFFF,#FFFFFF,#F11C3F

#D94E3A,#D94E3A,#D94E3A,#EFF1EF,#504C4C,#EFF1EF,#F4EFE6,#D94E3A

#D94E3A,#8c3426,#F4EFE6,#504C4C,#7DC9DA,#F4EFE6,#7DC9DA,#F4EFE6

#353535,#353535,#d94e3a,#FFFFFF,#737373,#7DC9DA,#60D156,#D94E3A

#d24632,#353535,#353535,#FFFFFF,#767676,#ffffff,#60D156,#f7f7f7

WordPress

#333333,#222222,#0074A2,#FFFFFF,#111111,#FFFFFF,#7AD03A,#D54E21

#363B3F,#26292C,#E14D43,#FFFFFF,#26292C,#FFFFFF,#E14D43,#E14D43

Altis

#152A4E,#2C3F5F,#2C3F5F,#FFFFFF,#2C3F5F,#F3F5F9,#3FCF8E,#4667DE

#0F1A3C,#111111,#4667DE,#FFFFFF,#152A4E,#F3F5F9,#3FCF8E,#ED7B9D,#0F1A3C,#F3F5F9