Managing Wikis in Business
I love the web. 43 pages of top flight, MBA Thesis quality research into how businesses use wikis - and its all available online.
The paper is called Managing Wikis in Business. You can get a pdf copy of this great research into wikis in the workplace here. The paper is by Penny Edwards. I recommend it highly.
Here are some of the main points:
- “Wikis’ usage, management and growth, to date have been dependent largely
on the grassroots initiatives of self-motivated ‘technical’ users. Those users tend to be
more venturesome and able to cope with uncertainty during early adoption stages.” - When implementing this technology, companies need to think most about how to phase in adoption by non-technical users
- “View [any] implementation as a change process and allow for planned
emergence during adoption and growth/maintenance, and encourage
evaluation throughout.“ - “Don’t rely solely on the self-motivation of the initial adopter groups.”
- “Recognise that later adopters may need greater support helping them
understand how to use the wiki and work more collaboratively. Engage
existing users in this process to grow the wiki organically. Focus on and
demonstrate the uses/benefits of wikis’ use for everyday work (with
knowledge collection being a by-product of wiki usage rather than an end in
itself).“ - “Allow people time to develop their skills with the wiki and gradually move
them away from use of inefficient tools by constantly and subtly promoting its
use (e.g. through moving tasks/information onto the wiki, sending people
links/referring people to wiki pages and involving people in projects using
wikis). However, support different communication styles and recognise that
using a wiki may not be suitable in certain circumstances”
The biggest take-away I have comes from that last point. In a work environment, new technology is never adopted over night. It takes time to move people over. When introducing something as radically new as Enterprise 2.0, you have to be patient…. at least during the roll-out phase.
That thesis is great, especially because I was researching this topic myself recently and couldn’t find literature on wiki’s in a business setting.
It’s true that wiki’s can help tremendously when it comes to large scale collaborative projects, but I seldom see them used as a help reference and business discussion.
I guess it’s a little difficult to use them without a decent amount of moderation if you are a larger business?
As with any collaboration project, Enterprise 2.0 deployments, with staged roll-outs, training and management support are key factors. In most (not all) scenarios, its necessary to lead users to the water and slowly transition people and their communication and collaboration processes to the wiki. The question is “how?”… Encouragement from team members coupled with subtle hints from the interface work together to solve the adoption, cultural and process transition issues faced by organizations seeking Enterprise 2.0 success. Click here to read Making Wikis Work in Business - Leading Users to the Water.