eng wikisym2008 group practices

WikiSym 2008

Wiki For WorkgroupsPractices On Creating Awareness With Wiki

Summary for OpenSpace session“Share your small-group wiki practice”

http://www.wikisym.org/ws2008/index.php/Small_Group_Wiki_Practices


WikiSym 2008: Wiki For Workgroups And Awareness

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WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness

Define Workgroup

• 3–15 people

• no hierarchy, all members have equal rights

• a common goal, often a common project

• team interaction is essential

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Role of wiki • product development environment

• place for communication between participants

• awareness creation tool:

• common understanding of essential things

• “consciousness of a group”

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Creating In Wiki

Wikis are suited well for collaborative development of

• glossaries & encyclopedias

• design documents

• “how to”-oriented documentation

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WikiSym 2008: вики для рабочих групп и awareness

Как организовать?

• Пишите только то, что нужно другим участникам

• Создавайте страницы-заглушки, когда нуждаетесь в информации

• Организуйте место, где можно будет найти все страницы-заглушки


Минусы работы с вики

• ещё один рабочий инструмент, который придётся освоить

• сложно организовать workflow для вычитки и сверки документации

• есть риск создать запутанный, плохоструктурированный продукт


Рейды на викиХороший способ привести в порядок то, что вы натворили.

• объявите о времени и продолжительности (2-3 часа)

• подготовьте очередь заданий, которые можно “брать и делать”: например, список страниц для улучшений


Social Awareness

• Who are you team mates? What’s their “human side”?

• How are people around you talking to each other? What are implicit rules of communication?

• What’s going on around? Anything of interest?

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WikiSym 2008: social awareness in wiki

Pattern: Who We AreEach team member fills out a wiki page containing personal information like:

• name, nickname and contacts

• aims and goals: both project-related and personal ones

• experience & competences he could share with team


Example: Socs

Wikipedia-oriented research project visualizing social network of Wikipedia contributors.

Each contributor can add or edit:

• who’s working on what topics

• existing relations between contributors


Pattern: Unofficials• list of neighborhood restaurants to lunch at

• recommendations: health care, travelling agencies and experiences, advices on gadgets, etc.

• what’s going on around: concerts, parties, social and cultural events


Vision Awareness

• What for we are here?

• What’s the meaning behind all of our activity?

• What’s the product we are developing?

• Are we thinking about all that stuff in a similar way?

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WikiSym 2008: vision awareness in wiki

Pattern: Tri-AngulationWiki page, where each participant should write three different “definitions” explaining our vision on a particular subject.

Key points:

• make definitions short and impressive

• choose definitions that differ as much as you can (like, “ortogonal views” on subject)

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Example:

what is “wiki”?

• Several people making quick changes in some shared product.

• Way of doing things, when you focus on doing something shared right now.

• For example, you are discussing with your friends, where you all gonna lunch in a half-hour.

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Pattern: Share Your IdeasWiki page with “add your own idea” is a starting point for building up a shared product image.

Organisation tips

• create subsections for different kinds of ideas

• fill in 2-3 your own ideas for starter

• add an invitation like “add you idea right here” 16


Workflow awareness

• What’s happened during my vacation?

• What are other people doing now?

• What’s our focus today?

• What should I do right now?

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WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki

Pattern: Skype LoggingWiki is not suited for intense debates. Chats are much better. Even emails are better.

Wiki is used to store logs of important conversations; they are published to wiki “as is”.

Then organiser finds a time to outline & filter on a separate wiki page

• decisions made

• next actions18


Pattern: To DoFrom all the tasks, bugs and issues we filter only a few ones to focus on them right now.

• Tasks are presented in ordered lists

• Section headers are used to outline

• task importance

• who’s responsible for this task

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Pattern: Work LogWrite all you actions and achievements on a dedicated page in this form:

• short sentences, 1-2 phrases for each achievemnt

• who’s done what; what’s the result

• split on day basis

It helps you to create a common history of group’s life; helps members to return in flow of continuing work after their vacations.

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Pattern: Meetings WikiMake an agenda page in wiki before each meeting:

• decisions we want to be made

• question we want to discuss

• scenario/program of the meeting

• ordered lists of events during meeting

• way to moderate communication

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Pattern: Meetings WikiYou can put that page on projector and continue your work with it

• writing down each decision right after it is made

• conspecting important quotes

• marking up your progress on agenda

Let that projectored page to become your “wiki” during this meeting!

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Pattern: Meeting ReportsTo create a meeting report you’ll just need to

• add list of participants

• check success of each topic from agenda

• outline key decisions made.

Email meeting report as a link to resulting wiki page and invitation to fix any errors and disambiguations.

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Bonus:

Noob GuidePrepare a wiki page for newcomers with such topics covered:

• Where to look answers for questions on various topics, “who could help on what”

• How do your team life pulses: regular meetings, raids, dinners and holidays

• Gatekeeping: what newcomer must do before starting his regular work

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Bonus:

Snapshot ArtefactTreat content you created in wiki as an “artefact”

• freeze project wiki after completing project: garden it right and move on

• make a hard copy:

• write wiki on a CD for each participant

• publish selected wiki content is a separate website

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Summary

Awareness creation is the main appliance of wiki technologies in workgroups, it helps to create “group consciousness” on

★ vision of a product

★ workflow of a project

★ environment (work and non-work)

★ group itself.

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Authors and contributors• Nikolay Yaremko

[email protected]

• Konstantin [email protected]

and other WikiSym participants, especially listed on OpenSpace session wiki page: Share your small-group wiki practice

More WikiSym 2008 stories?http://wikisym2008.humanemagica.com

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