For the most part my company breaks things out into
- public / general channels (IT, chit-chat, culture, annoucements, etc)
- team-public - where you go to chat with a team directly
- team-private - used mostly for internal discussions (tech discussions, PR requests, eng-to-eng questions, etc)
- monitoring / alerting channels - where all the pings happen if something breaks, CI related info, etc
In general this approach works. Everyone in the company has permission to create a new channel (private or public).
Additionally, the amount of workflows pumped into Slack in a unorganized, unstructured manor seems absurd.
this just requires someone to usher slack to an organized state. If you're having trouble finding the right people / channels, that's a Garbage In - Garbage Out problem.
It's impossible to find knowledge in Slack.
I don't find this to be true at all. The built in search feature is pretty decent, and has led me to solve a ton of issues without having to re-ask the question.
If you're company is using Slack as a knowledge dump, you may want to consider a wiki.
The amount of plugins, automation tools, and information you can pipe through slack is quite astounding. I know every one likes to bemoan how distracting it is, but honestly it's my favorite business-driven chat client to date.
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With too many channels.
For the most part my company breaks things out into - public / general channels (IT, chit-chat, culture, annoucements, etc) - team-public - where you go to chat with a team directly - team-private - used mostly for internal discussions (tech discussions, PR requests, eng-to-eng questions, etc) - monitoring / alerting channels - where all the pings happen if something breaks, CI related info, etc
In general this approach works. Everyone in the company has permission to create a new channel (private or public).
this just requires someone to usher slack to an organized state. If you're having trouble finding the right people / channels, that's a Garbage In - Garbage Out problem.
If you're company is using Slack as a knowledge dump, you may want to consider a wiki.
The amount of plugins, automation tools, and information you can pipe through slack is quite astounding. I know every one likes to bemoan how distracting it is, but honestly it's my favorite business-driven chat client to date.