Slack Lists: Plan work for the next quarter
As you start planning for the next quarter, you might find that your team’s ideas and goals are scattered across channels, docs and spreadsheets. With Slack Lists, you can create a straightforward catalogue of planned work, improve visibility across teams and discuss priorities where you’re already working – in Slack!
Create a catalogue of planned work
Let’s say you and your team are thinking through work for next quarter. You can create a catalogue of planned projects in a List that you and your team can prioritise and organise as needed.
Create a new List
Start a List from scratch or use one of our templates (the Quarterly planning template is a fantastic option).
- From your desktop, hover over More, then select Lists.
- In the top right-hand corner, click on New, then select List.
- If you like, select the Quarterly planning template from the column on the left, then click Use Template.
Customise your List
Customise the List for information that you’d like to include. In the Quarterly planning template, Project, Priority and Relative effort are added for you, but you can add, edit or delete fields as needed.
Add a field
Edit a field
Delete a field
- From the List, click on the plus icon at the end of the top row.
- Enter a name for the field and choose a field type. Select additional options if prompted.
- Click on Save.
- Click a field in the top row of the List, then select Edit field.
- Edit the name of the field, and select a Field type to change the format of the data.
- Click on Save.
- Click a field in the top row of the List, then select Delete field.
- Confirm to delete the field.
Add items to the List
Once you’ve set up your List, start adding items to it, such as projects and tasks that you and the team are planning for the next quarter.
- Click Untitled item and enter a description.
- For each item, click the field cells to enter relevant data, such as project name, priority level and effort. The data will be formatted according to the field type.
- To add more items, click Add item at the bottom of the List.
Tip: You can turn any message into a List item! From a conversation, hover over a message and click the three dots icon, then select Add to List.
Improve visibility across teams
To improve company-wide visibility for the work that your team has planned, share your List with cross-functional teams. You can also link to channels within Lists to reference where conversations and work are already happening.
Share your List
Share the List with specific people, such as project managers. You can also share Lists in project or team channels where conversations about planned work are already happening.
- From a List, click Share in the top right-hand corner.
- From the General tab, select if everyone in your workspace should have Restricted, Can view or Can edit access, then click Save.
- From the Channels or People tabs, add the names of people or channels who can collaborate on the List, then click Share. The List will be sent as a message to the people or channels that you specified.
Tip: To see who a List has been shared with, click Share in the top-right corner of a List, then navigate between the Channels and People tabs.
Link to channels
Add links to relevant channels to connect List items to the work happening in Slack.
- If you started with the Quarterly planning List template, a Channel field was created for you, so skip to step 4. If not, click on the plus icon at the end of the top row of a List to create a new field.
- Add a name for the field, then select Channel from the Field type drop-down menu.
- Choose if you’d like to allow multiple selections, then click Save.
- Click the channel field on an item, then search for and select a channel.
Discuss priorities where you’re working
When you and your teammates need to discuss items in a List, you can start conversations without missing any context.
Create a message thread
Have focused conversations about planned projects or tasks by creating dedicated message threads in a List.
- From the List, hover over an item, then click Add comment to start a thread or View comment to continue a thread.
- Type your message, then press Send.
Note: You can read and reply to message threads about List items in the same place as your other threads by clicking Threads in your sidebar.