Follow-up slides from Group Practices OpenSpace session of WikiSym2008

1. WikiSym 2008
Wiki For Workgroups
Practices On Creating Awareness With Wiki
Summary for OpenSpace session
“Share your small-group wiki practice”

2. WikiSym 2008: Wiki For Workgroups And Awareness
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3. 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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4. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
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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5. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
Creating In Wiki
Wikis are suited well for collaborative
development of
• glossaries & encyclopedias
• design documents
• “how to”-oriented documentation
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6. 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

7. WikiSym 2008: вики для рабочих групп и awareness
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

8. WikiSym 2008: вики для рабочих групп и awareness
Рейды на вики
Хороший 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

9. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
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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10. WikiSym 2008: social awareness in wiki
Pattern: Who We Are
Each 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

11. WikiSym 2008: social awareness in wiki
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

12. WikiSym 2008: social awareness in wiki
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

13. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
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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14. WikiSym 2008: vision awareness in wiki
Pattern: Tri-Angulation
Wiki 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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15. WikiSym 2008: vision awareness in wiki
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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16. WikiSym 2008: vision awareness in wiki
Pattern: Share Your Ideas
Wiki 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

17. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
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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18. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: Skype Logging
Wiki 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 actions 18

19. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: To Do
From 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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20. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: Work Log
Write 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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21. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: Meetings Wiki
Make 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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22. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: Meetings Wiki
You 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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23. WikiSym 2008: workflow awareness in wiki
Pattern: Meeting Reports
To 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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24. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
Bonus:
Noob Guide
Prepare 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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25. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
Bonus:
Snapshot Artefact
Treat 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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26. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
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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27. WikiSym 2008: wiki for workgroups & awareness
Authors and contributors
• Nikolay Yaremko
makiwara@humanemagica.com
• Konstantin Kolomeetz
kolomeetz@yandex-team.ru
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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