PRD for a feature to enhance the Slack experience

Assignment: As a PM of Slack, you are going to depreciate X, and add a, b and c features. State what X, a, b and c features are and in what order you would be launching them. Write PRD for either one.

This is an assignment based on hypothetical assumptions and data. Slack as a company or any of their employees do not have any contribution to this.

What's New!

Introducing /blocker: an effective way of raising important queries in channels

Ever ask a time sensitive question in a channel to only get sidelined by other messages and discussions? Or not sure who is the right person to answer your query and have to nudge the channel repeatedly to get answers?

Those important questions can now be raised as blockers in a channel which remain highlighted until you mark them as resolved.

Slack's new channel blocker feature

You can also assign a time span by which you need your issue/query to be resolved.

Channel blocker is rolling out over the next several days to desktop users. Have feedback? We’d love to hear it! You can drop us a line or reach us at @SlackHQ on Twitter.

PRD

Objective, Hypothesis and Data

Objective: Help users get answers to their queries in channel effectively.

Hypothesis: A slackbot command to raise blockers in the channel can help with getting answers to important questions quickly.

Data:

• In Usability Testing, 76% reported that their questions go unanswered in a channel which are potential blockers for their tasks.

• Remote team members and cross functional remote teams are reportedly affected by issue of unanswered questions causing delay in their tasks.

Link to the Usability Testing document

Success Metric:

90% of the /blockers get resolved within 12 hours of being created

User Pain Points

As a slack user...

• ... sometimes important questions go unanswered in channels and my related task gets blocked

• ... I am not sure who to reach out for my question and hence have to ping the entire channel till my query gets resolved

• ... I do not like to repeatedly nudge the channel for my question

User Story

Module Name

Slack /blocker command to raise blockers in channel

Purpose

Help users get answers to their queries in channel effectively.

Scope (What is included in this story)

Blocker command	Blocker command help	Invalid blocker command help	Blocker question card in channel

Engineering Effort

T-shirt size M

Functional Requirements

Click on tab to see the requirement details of respective module

Blocker Command

• New /blocker command with two inputs as follows

  • [what]

    • This is the input for blocker question

    • It takes text input

  • [when]

    • This is the input for timeline

    • Detect when after keyword 'by'

    • The input can be keywords 'today', 'tomorrow'

    • The input can be a date. eg. '25th June', '26th'

    • If month is missing then assume the current month

• Blocker Description: Raise a blocker

blocker command

Need some help with /blocker?

• Help message when user types /blocker and clicks enter

• Prompt user with Slackbot help for /blocker as follows

blocker command help

Invalid /blocker command

• Fail safe if slackbot is not able to detect the command or user did not include all required inputs in the command

fail safe if command is not interpreted

• Show Some Examples button

  • Shows 7 examples to guide user on writing /blockers effectively

Blocker question card in channel

• A highlighted question card gets created in the channel

• Users can comment on the question card with their inputs or tag other users

• The user who created the blocker can mark the blocker as resolved and then the question card is no longer highlighted

• Prompt user to mark blocker as resolved if slackbot detect 'thanks' in the question card comments

Acceptance Criteria

When this story is complete, a user...

• ... can raise blockers in a channel by typing in /blocker command in the text box

• ... can mark blocker as complete in the channel by clicking on the Mark Resolved button on the blocker card

• ... can see how /blocker commands works by typing /blocker and pressing enter

Please make sure all accessibility guidelines are followed.

Future Enhancements

• Nudge the channel when a blocker is pending for over a certain period of time

• Ability for user to see their active and past blockers

• Channel performance analytics with respect to blockers

Thank you for reading :) You can reach out to me via LinkedIn or drop an email on [e-mail]