How to Handle “Unsanctioned” Wikis in Your Organization

Stockholm UniversityIndustryWeek’s Brad Kenney reports on a study of 160 active corporate wiki users conducted by the Advanced Practices Council (APC). The study looked at a wide range of wiki-related issues, including how to handle “unsanctioned” wikis – those that have been created outside the auspices of IT:

In reality, a large number of companies may already have employees using wikis for work purposes without the authority to do so. Perhaps a better question than whether unsanctioned use of wikis should be tolerated is: “How and what can be done to ensure employees use wikis productively and for the larger good?”

This is smart, pragmatic advice: CIOs should take existing wiki use as a positive sign, and focus their energy and resources on furthering that use. The best approach a CIO can take with regard to existing wiki use in their organization is to:

  1. Offer to help groups make sure their wiki software is up to date and secure
  2. Help break down technical barriers to widespread wiki use – for example, promote interconnection between wikis through LDAP integration
  3. Reward early adopters to spread goodwill and further catalyze wiki use

One’s first instinct may be to quickly shut down all those wikis to mitigate security and privacy risks, and move them to a centrally supported one. In reality, it takes time to do this, and during that time you should involve the people who are already using wikis in the decision making process.

You can dramatically increase your chances of success if you build relationships and goodwill with the people who started those scattered wikis. They’ll be much more likely to move to a new service in which they’ve had input and feel a sense of ownership than one they feel forced to move to.

Here are seven strategies the APC report recommends for a successful corporate wiki:

  1. Integrate the wiki as one of several important tools in an organization’s IT collaboration architecture.
  2. Understand the wiki “rules of conduct” and ensure they are monitored and enforced.
  3. Optimize the use of wikis for collaborative knowledge creation across geographically dispersed employees, and for crossing divisional or functional boundaries, in order to gain insights from people not previously connected.
  4. Assign a champion to each wiki and have that champion observe contributions that people make to the wiki; the champion will help foster employees who adopt the important “shaper” role within the wiki.
  5. Recognize that the most difficult barrier to cross in sustaining a wiki is convincing people to edit others’ work; organizations should ask their champion and managers to help with this.
  6. Recognize that a significant value of wikis comes from embedding small software programs into the wiki that structure repetitive behavior. Some include organizing meeting minutes, rolling up project status or scheduling meetings. Ask wiki participants to keep watching for repetitive activity to evolve and enhance wiki technology.
  7. Understand wikis are best used in work cultures that encourage collaboration. Without an appropriate fit with the workplace culture, wiki technology will be of limited value in sharing knowledge, ideas and practices.

This is an excellent piece of research from APC. Business wiki users, IT leadership, and CIOs stand to benefit immensely from this advice. (via elearningpost)