Aims

The aims of the wiki were to:

• Encourage all engineers to document and share their learnings on projects instead of keeping it on their personal notebooks.
• Allow multiple teams of engineers to work simultaneously on projects across offices overseas.
• Formalise and facilitate access to the design and analysis procedures required by the new market.
• Promote a spirit of openness and cooperation to encourage all engineers to share their learnings and help each other. 

Principles

The wiki was designed along clear, simple and effective principles.

Simple structure

The team set up the basic structure of the wiki and defined simple rules to ensure consistency between various “pages”.

Open system

By default, every engineer had access to all the information.  Only a very small number of projects with specific confidentiality requirements had restricted access. 

No policing of content

Each engineer was responsible for its own input.  This was self-regulating thanks to the nature of a wiki where all changes are recorded and easy to track. 

Technical support

Support was provided by the team that set it up to maintain the system and ensure consistency in its use.  However, no-one needed to be exclusively dedicated to this role. 

Training

Training in the use of the wiki was provided to every engineer and simple reference guides and documentation provided. 

After a while the wiki became widely accepted and became the main repository of technical information for the engineering team. 

Success factors

• A simple structure was devised to ensure consistency as content was created.
• Training and support were provided.
• The tool was perceived by most engineers to be easy to use.
• The introduction and wide use of the wiki was supported by management.
• The nature of a wiki enabled engineers to write "stories" explaining their journey to resolve technical challenges (which is more difficult to achieve in basic file sharing systems).

As content increased, engineers quickly realised the benefits for their everyday work.

Limitations

Attempts at deploying the wiki to other departments such as HR, Finance and Sales had limited success.  The interface was perceived as not sufficiently friendly for non-technically minded staff. 

Each of these departments had different requirements and ended up selecting and introducing their own systems to document and share information. 

The original open-source wiki had limitations in terms of management of the attached files and search capabilities. 

As a result, a new wiki system was introduced later to address these limitations and allow more teams to contribute. 

The introduction and deployment of the wiki in Engineering was a very enriching experience. 

Help

Nowadays I work with overstretched leaders of engineering SMEs to help them prepare their business so they can achieve profitable growth.

To explore how I could help you, please use the link below to arrange a free 30-minute conversation.

http://tinyurl.com/HerveJardonCalendar