A Frog in the Valley

One thing that I have always wanted to was to work with a team on a project with with a Wiki. Not only with a wiki, but at least to use one as a central repository of domain knowledge and as a whiteboard for brainstorming and planning.

The thing is, it’s really hard to teach someone on how to use a wiki. It is both a conceptual leap and a cultural one. People looking for finished documents hate wikis. I hate the fact that they don't understand most document are never finished! Work-in-progress is the operating keyword for wikis. Constant evolution.

The other aspect is harder to understand. Wikis are great for people that live and breathe at their keyboard, hooked to the network. That’s not taught. It’s acquired, it’s about working habits and cultural fit. You can not enforce those cultural trait on someone not already engrained with these.

I am delighted to be working on several projects with people with the right conceptual mindset and the cultural fit. It’s still hard work. The real essence of wiki use is all about agreed upon rules, soft rules. Altought the tool can enforce some behaviors, I have discovered that conventions between participants are the secret of successful wiki usage for group work.

I suppose those best practices of wiki usage most be documented on a wiki somewhere… but please, not in a academic/meta/behaviorail analysis style (nothing wrong with that for the sake of research and deep understanding, but most people I work with simply want to get things done).

I also suppose that the best person to ask that question to would be Seb Paquet…