Unlocking value with Slack

Organizations are under increasing pressure to do more with less. This heightened focus on operational efficiency underscores the importance of measuring and maximizing the value of tech investments. Slack, the AI-powered platform for work, offers a flexible architecture that empowers teams to streamline workflows, collaborate effectively, and drive value across the organization. Let’s explore Slack’s Value Realization methodology and how it can help you quantify value at your organization to unlock the full potential of your team.

What is value and why is measuring it important?

We think about value as a quantifiable or qualitative benefit and we align those benefits with business goals and strategic objectives. Articulating value effectively involves telling a compelling story, backed by meaningful metrics that resonate with your organization’s leaders. By measuring value, we can identify gaps, highlight best practices, and establish a framework for ongoing value realization.

Slack’s Value Realization methodology

The Value Realization methodology at Slack focuses on quantifying, optimizing and collaborating on strategic business goals and metrics to align Slack capabilities with business outcomes.

By analyzing baseline metrics, identifying areas for improvement and establishing a value-centric partnership, Slack helps organizations:

• Show success and return on investment 
• Facilitate data-driven decision-making 
• Understand how Slack uniquely solves business problems 
• Replicate success across your business 

At Slack, we have a dedicated Value Realization team focused on showcasing the value customers have realized and can realize through the platform. The Value Realization team supports immersive engagements, customer value stories programs, and value perspective services to help customers quantify, optimize and collaborate on the value they derive from Slack. 

Adopting the Slack Value Realization methodology at your organization can help you spotlight the impact of Slack on the organization, secure resources for growth, and make strategic decisions based on data-driven insights.

Tools you can use to drive Slack value at your organization

Build a value map

By creating a value map, you can clearly articulate the impact of Slack on helping your organization achieve business objectives. The output of a value map can highlight best practices and use cases from different parts of the business to capitalize on what’s working really well today or to identify opportunities to address a gap or need. But how do you go about creating a value map and maximize your value with Slack? Follow these four steps:

1. Align value with business goals: Consider revenue growth, customer satisfaction, cost savings, efficiency gains and operational excellence.
2. Define objectives: What are the means to achieve results that are strategic, actionable and measurable?
3. Identify Slack capabilities: Features and products in the productivity platform that enable the delivery of objectives.
4. Measure success: Establish success metrics that track progress against business goals and KPIs.

After creating a value map, validate it with your leadership and key stakeholders. Ask validation questions to ensure alignment with overall business strategy and identify areas for improvement. The value map can be a powerful tool to understand the existing value your organization has realized, track real-time value when implementing improvements, and plan a roadmap for improvement.

Usage-based ROI analysis

One way to quantify the value of Slack is by looking at the hours and dollars saved through usage data and conservative assumptions. For example, we use an assumption that an active Slack Connect user saves one hour per month by reducing back-and-forth email time. We multiply this by the total number of active users, take a 25% cut of those to account for outliers, and then multiply by a $70,000 salary to contextualize into dollars saved. For an organization with 100 active Slack Connect users, we would conservatively estimate a savings of $31,500 per year from this feature alone.

Apps and workflow actions, reduced meeting time through Slack huddles and clips, search and file sharing efficiency, and the time savings from Slack Connect all contribute to the overall value realized by organizations. To understand your organization’s usage, visit the Slack analytics dashboard.

By breaking down the calculations for each aspect of Slack usage, organizations can gain a clear understanding of how these time and cost savings are derived. Assumptions such as the number of actions considered high-value, the average employee’s annual salary, and the percentage of actions that contribute to productivity gains are all taken into account to provide a comprehensive view of the value generated. It is important to align on the inputs and logic with stakeholders and decision makers in order to have meaningful conversations about the value of Slack adoption.

By leveraging the data and insights provided by Slack’s features and functionalities, organizations can maximize their value and drive efficiency in their day-to-day operations. With a clear understanding of the time and cost savings generated, businesses can make informed decisions about how to further optimize their usage of Slack and enhance their overall productivity.

Deploy a survey to understand the value your organization is realizing

Conducting a survey is a great way to understand and qualify your end-user needs, preferences and usage patterns. Surveys are best conducted pre- or post-launch, or on a regular cadence (quarterly, annual, etc.). To help you navigate the survey process effectively, we have outlined five steps that will ensure a successful survey deployment and analysis.

1. Create a survey planning document: The first step in the survey process is to create a survey planning document. This document serves as an internal reference guide that outlines the survey goals, target end users, messaging templates and the link to the survey. By sharing this document with your team, you can ensure alignment and collaboration throughout the survey process.
2. Design your survey: Once you have established your survey goals and target audience, it’s time to design your survey. We recommend you keep the survey concise (up to 10 questions) and vary the question types to maintain respondent engagement. Build your survey using a platform like Google Forms or Slack App Polly. Remember to ask questions that provide insight into the goals of your survey.
3. Launch your survey: With your survey designed, it’s time to launch it to your end users. Request an internal stakeholder to send the survey in a prominent channel or distribute it via email using the proposed messaging. Offering a gift for completing the survey and setting a due date for responses can help increase participation rates.
4. Conduct 1:1 interviews: As responses start coming in, consider conducting one-on-one interviews with select end users to gain deeper insights into their Slack usage. These interviews can provide valuable context and personal stories that enrich the survey data. Offer incentives (like Slack swag) to encourage participation in these interviews.
5. Present survey results: Once the survey is complete, it’s essential to analyze the results and present them to your stakeholders. The insights gathered from the survey will inform your next steps for enhancing end-user experience and enablement, and provide qualitative analysis to gain valuable insights and drive informed decision-making.

Document use cases in value stories

One effective way to showcase the impact of Slack within your organization is through value stories. Key components a value story highlights are the challenges faced, the solutions implemented using Slack and the tangible results achieved. To create impactful value stories, it’s important to focus on the following:

• Identify the business impetus for change, such as the need to scale for growth, tackle planned or unforeseen changes, execute mergers and acquisitions, or implement desired technology changes.
• Highlight the shortcomings of the previous system, such as process bottlenecks or employee sentiment issues. Provide before-and-after implementation details to showcase the transformation.
• Summarize the key ROI metrics that demonstrate the value generated by using Slack.

To start collecting value stories within your organization, follow these steps:

1. Identify power users of Slack and add them to a dedicated channel. You can use this channel as a forum to collect Slack stories.
2. Set up a workflow in the channel to collect value stories without friction. Follow up with users to quantify their impact.
3. Document the stories and focus on the narrative, estimates and time frames to understand the before-and-after impact.

By collecting and using value stories in Slack, organizations can showcase the real impact of the platform on their day-to-day operations. These stories not only inspire and educate but also provide valuable insights for enhancing the overall value strategy within the organization.

In conclusion

Unlocking value with Slack is a transformative journey that requires collaboration, optimization, and quantification and qualification of business goals and metrics. By leveraging Slack’s innovative features, tools and Value Realization methodology, organizations can drive success, increase productivity, and achieve their strategic objectives with confidence. Start your journey toward becoming a value expert with Slack.

More resources

Slack Certified: Use Slack analytics to drive adoption and engagement
The Total Economic Impact of Slack for Technical Teams
The value of Slack for software developers
New IDC analysis: The value of Slack for the enterprise