This is the sixth in a twelve-part series exploring Why Businesses Don’t Collaborate.
The full research report is available for Download.

Question

Did you know that a wiki can be used for documents that require group input, such as project proposals, reports, meeting agendas and minutes, technical documentation, articles, etc.?

75% of respondents said yes. The comments show that those who are already using wikis are generally satisfied, but find that adoption of the tool by the entire group is critical to success. Those that aren’t using wikis reported that the main reasons for not doing so are: lack of adoption, unavailability of a wiki, wiki platforms that aren’t easy to use, and organizations that do not approve the use of wikis.

Several comments reflected misconceptions about wikis, namely that they are anarchic, subject to hacking, wouldn’t fit well in a high-security environment, lack the ability to manage access, or may be vandalized by disgruntled employees.

Although some of these issues may exist with public wikis, such as Wikipedia, they aren’t seen in wikis used “behind the firewall” in organizations. Wiki software tools designed for organizational use have security, organization, and access features that make them well-suited for high-security environments. 

These enterprise wikis allow for information to be organized in individual workspaces based on project, department, team, etc., and access to those spaces can be granted to specific people. Permissions can also be set at the page level, so that a person might login, access a particular space, and have editing rights on some pages, but only viewing rights on others.

Enterprise wikis are designed to allow user account, group, and access information to be provisioned from authentication and authorization systems like LDAP and Active Directory, so that a person can login to the enterprise wiki with the same credentials that they use to access email, the company network, etc.


Survey Comments

• I have been doing this for years, and it has been the most effective way of gathering input by far. I’ve found that people are much more likely to participate when they can just go update Wiki pages vs. reviewing formal/traditional documents.
• While wikis can be useful, they’re only useful if the community makes a conscious effort to adopt and actually use the tool.
• If I was recommended/introduced to a system with an easy to use and informative interface, one where the data entered would remain secure (or could even be hosted on our own server) I would strongly lean in this direction! I’m more than willing to give it a shot.