Penny Edwards in her post wiki management cycle describes five processes for managing wiki implementation. Penny is a smart cookie and her conclusions are based on sound research. We need to listen to what she has to say.
The five processes for managing wiki implementation that Penny describes are:
- identifying needs
- planning
- wiki adoption
- wiki maintainenance
- evaluation
Identifying Needs
These needs are not only the needs of the business but also the needs of the people who will collaborate on the wiki. The capabilities and the relationships of these people and how they need to be developed appear crucial.
Only when these needs are understood can businesses move on to identifying the wiki technologies, which can support those needs and capabilities.
Planning
Implementation of the chosen wiki platform needs to be a balance of planned and emergent approaches. The correct balance fosters learning and allows patterns of use and self-sustaining behaviour to evolve over time. Strong leadership is required to provide direction and purpose and guide development of a shared vision of what is to be achieved.
Consideration of how the wiki will fit with existing technology and business processes and how this integration can be facilitated is an integral part of this planning process.
Wiki Adoption
Wiki adoption refers to the stages through which users typically progress before committing to the new wiki technology, with different adopter ‘types’ progressing through the stages at different times and speeds. Penny discusses the spiral of wiki adoption in a separate post, which I will report on later.
Wiki Maintainenance
Wiki maintenance according to Penny is closely related to adoption. Rather than maintenance, she discusses wiki growth and propagation of good practice throughout the organisation.
Important issues she raises are managerial support, content management and wikis’ integration with other systems and work processes. Managers need to lead by example, reduce barriers to use and encourage experimentation. Participation on the wiki needs to be mandatory and successful ideas and practices propagated throughout the organisation.
Managing content and easing navigation by paying attention to updating, linking and tagging will make the wiki increasingly useful over time.
Evaluation
Encouraging and responding to feedback, revising plans and design as needed, will facilitate use and growth of the wiki.
However, evaluation of the wiki’s impact on bottom-line performance and development of organisational learning practices is more difficult. Accelerated project cycle times, reduced email overload and search costs may provide some hard data but they do not consider the more important effects of wiki usage on organisational learning and collaborative capability development.
I will be keeping on eye on Penny’s blog and reporting back from time to time. I encourage anyone serious about implementing a business wiki to drop by her site.
Tagged with: FAQs • Implementation • Management
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