Grow a spine and just do it

The biggest obstacle for wikis is still adoption and the two biggest components of that are email (which makes it easy NOT to do wikis) and basic human nature (a reluctance to change, take the steps, mandate it, and make it successful).

You are a manager, supervisor, or other kind of leader of a group or function that collaboratively works on numerous tasks and requirements. Failure to deliver is ultimately your responsibility. You and your people get it done, but you live on email, attachments, things falling through the cracks, and the occasional irate customer. It's not seamless, it's not productive, and it's not fun.

You've heard all the claims about ease of use and the benefits of adopting wikis, but it isn’t going to happen in your company, is it? Here is a simple step-by-step process for making your life easier, your people happier, and your efforts more productive (Warning – this has an edgy, ‘no-nonsense' tone to it).

• Select a wiki product. If you are just starting out and you fear the likely outcome of 'requesting' your company to provide a wiki solution, then you have 3 choices each of which assumes you are going to just do it and beg forgiveness later (when you will be proving how beneficial it is to the organization!):

1. Have someone in IT that you know is already using a wiki solution internally set you up with a private space; or

2. Select a hosted solution that will cost you $5/month for as many people as you want to access it (pay for it out of pocket and skip lunch once a month if you have to). PBwiki offers a single password for any member to use; Wikispaces offers a unique ID/password for each member; OR

3. Have a technical developer type you trust download some freeware onto a web accessible server (offsite or behind your company's firewall).

Granted, this approach MAY imply a conflict with some company policies, but you know what happens when you ask first. Just do it and beg forgiveness later. Of course, use common sense - it's not worth getting fired over.

• Organize how you will use it. Play around with it first and get some pointers from someone who is familiar with the particular product you selected. There are lots of ways to organize a wiki, but here is the simplest – The Home Page is just a chronological listing (or any other order you feel comfortable with) of each new task or requirement that comes along. Each item in that listing is actually a page link to a separate Page where the person or team will do the work – all the communications that are normally done in email and any deliverable that comes out of the process.

• Use a simple process. On each new page (requirement) state what needs to be done (the same way you would in an email). List the names of who is responsible. Those people use that page to provide updates, questions, ideas, solutions, tasks completed. On the Home Page, someone can periodically update the status of the various line items.

• Mandate its use by your people. No, you’re not going to ‘try’ something new. You need to explain the layout, how you will be creating pages on the wiki the way you ‘used to create emails’, how your people will communicate on each wiki page instead of email, and how each page will, in effect, be the complete audit trail of whatever was done to work and complete that requirement. Stray emails relevant to any particular task need to be steered back into the wiki with a reminder to senders or receivers (e.g., “Great question/suggestion – see the wiki for the answer.”). Yes, the tone and approach you use with you folks will depend on the culture and personalities of the group – maintain a firm but gentle approach however in requiring its use.

• Constantly review and keep the content current. Now, instead of hammering people with voicemails and emails, you can quickly go through every task and see what has been done, any issues, and leave your own comments/suggestions. Keep the Page links on the Home Page current, but don’t DELETE any links of completed tasks or projects. Cut and paste the Page Links from the Home Page to an Archive Page. You want to keep these links and pages because they are the complete audit trail of everything done for any task your group does. Modify the approach and Page formats as people get used to it and improvement opportunities present themselves.

• Track some basic measures that prove you did the right thing. If you do it right, you either will never have to write another status report OR creating status reports will be a heck of a lot easier. Emails should be reduced substantially. Task and project quality should improve significantly. Cycle times will be reduced. And, perhaps most importantly, you and your people will have a better sense of what is happening, be more relaxed, and generally nicer to work with.

Be positive and flexible. You won’t get it perfect the first time, but you’ll never have to start over. This approach allows you to adapt, improve, act on suggestions, and get everyone to contribute. But you may have to be something of a ‘bad guy’ at first.

Still see obstacles?

Here’s the most likely one – you are just stretched too thin to take the time to start something (easy as it is) that would ultimately get more work done better in a faster time frame with the staff you already have. Catch-22.

Contact me. This is what I do.

And if you are an Executive or decision maker that is feeling the pinch of eroding productivity, how about cutting some slack for your people and just let them do this?

Comments

[CJV]

Good stuff. Some things require "guerilla" tactics...

I work with ProjectForum (sorry, shameless plug); no web server, no database server, no compiling, no special skills; just install and go.

Use the free version until you need the licensed version (for more features) or some other product.