TWiki Collaboration Tool An Intranet Publishing Tool and Knowledge Base Tool Peter Thoeny...

TWiki Collaboration Tool

An Intranet Publishing Tool

and Knowledge Base Tool

Peter ThoenyPeter@Thoeny.com1-408-255-1477

http://TWiki.org/

Agenda

Executive SummaryChallenges: Virtual Team, IntranetGoals for TWiki ToolSolutionBenefits of using TWikiLimitations of TWikiHow to Learn TWikiCollaboration HintsConclusions

Executive Summary

TWiki is a web based collaboration tool, tailored for organizations with distributed offices.

It is an integrated set of tools : A team based intranet publishing

tool. A departmental collaboration tool. A publishing tool to maintain FAQ and

KB on company web site.

Executive Summary (cont.)

Open Source software (GPL), hosted at http://TWiki.org/

In use by many companies as a dynamic Intranet tool (CNN, Ericsson, Lucent, GE, GTE, Newbridge, Sun, TI, Motorola, WebMD,...)

Executive Summary (cont.)

Tool highlights: Use your browser to create and

change content (web pages.) Content is a searchable and can be

categorized.Competes with HTML publishing

tools, e-mail, mailing lists and usenet.

Challenges: Virtual Team

Challenges a R&D team faces that is distributed over several locations:

How to brainstorm and work on new designs.

How to synch different teams.How to avoid reinventing the

wheel.

Challenges: Virtual Team (cont.)

Typical answers:Scheduled conference calls & occasional

visits.Exchange documents by e-mail. But:

E-mail gets lost after some time, but content might be needed again in the future.

Searching e-mail is limited to email client.E-mail is not hyper-linked and is not structured,

content can’t easily be grouped into related topics.

E-mail is not version controlled, e.g. it is difficult to look at a document history.

Challenges: Intranet Content

Static intranet sites are typically not very popular.

This is because:Some content is outdated.The quantity is limited.Content is static, it has a

"one webmaster syndrome."

Challenges: Intranet Content (cont.)

Example of “one webmaster syndrome.“ :

If I discover a page on the intranet that has incorrect or insufficient information, it is too complicated to find out who the webmaster is and to tell what should be changed. Result: Page typically will not get updated.

Goals for TWiki Tool

We had these goals and requirements when we developed and deployed TWiki:

Ease of use: “I am not going to use a tool that is

too cumbersome to use”Streamline the information flow

between corporate offices, especially between factory and the field.

Goals (cont.)

Document centric environment, not tool centric. Type of content: Intranet content: Linked pages of

product documentation, release notes and such.

Knowledge Base (KB): Problem / Solution pairs.

FAQ: Question / Answer pairs.

Goals (cont.)

Promote collaboration: “Shared knowledge is more then the

sum of its parts.” Not one webmaster responsible for

content, but each support engineer and field engineer is a webmaster.

Self regulating system: Minimize tool administration. Automated FAQ and KB maintenance.

Goals (cont.)

Quality of Content: Peer review process that promotes

accurate content. Used by all engineers on a daily

basis ensures up to date information.

Goals (cont.)

Quantity of Content: Enough relevant data is needed to

find a solution to a problem. Process that promotes feeding and

maintaining content.Version Control of Content:

Find out who changed what and when; see differences between versions; see previous versions of documents.

Solution: Web Based Collaboration

TWiki is an “Instant Intranet”, or a web based publishing tool that allows anyone to easily add or change content by just using a web browser: Browse and search content. Create and change web pages. Classify web pages, for example as

public FAQ, KB or confidential.

Solution: Ease of Use

Web pages are linked automatically, no more “404 page not found” errors.

Create new pages by simply entering a topic name and filling out details.

File attachments: Add files to a page, like an email attachment.

Solution: Interactive Tool

Add content “Share Knowledge”Notification of changes:

Get notified of page changes by email. A way to keep everybody in synch. It is also a way to check content by

senior engineers.Peer review for up to date content:

Fix a posting that is inaccurate or insufficient.

Solution: Quality and Quantity

Quality: User is empowered and encouraged to

make changes to content. Email notification promotes review. Up to date information (we eliminated

the “one webmaster syndrome”)Quantity:

Ease of use promotes contributions. Statistics with “top contributor list”

can be used for an incentive program.

Solution: Categorization

Pages can be edited in free form. In addition, each page has meta data,

which classifies and categorizes a page.Classify:

Declare a page as confidential, public FAQ, or public KB entry.

Public pages will be published.

Categorize: Additional meta data like a product

category.

Sample Screen Shot

Solution: Version Control

Pages are under version control: See previous page revisions. See differences between revisions. See who changed what and when.

Case Study: Motorola

Motorola UK uses TWiki for the Systems-on-Chip Design Technology. Crawford Currie of Motorola: "We are

now hosting 7 different [TWiki] webs, extending the 'team' from an on-site project team to a virtual team including members in Germany, UK, France, Australia, Russia and the US, with about 60 regular contributors (and growing)."

Case Study: Motorola (cont.)

The TWiki tool helped Motorola’s virtual teams to work efficiently on requirements capture, issues lists and internal documentation.

Benefits of using TWiki

Improved communication for a virtual teamDocumentation that is in synch with

project.Accurate content because of peer review.Eliminate the “one webmaster syndrome”Empowered engineers are motivated to

contribute.

Web basedNo additional publishing tools needed.No client side tools to update.

Limitations of TWiki

TWiki is a purely web based tool. This has the following implications:

The editor is simply an HTML form; browser editors are not very sophisticated.

Non WYSIWYG editing; nevertheless rich text can be written using a very simple markup language (WikiSyntax). Example:make text appear in *bold* or in =fixed font=.(This is basically how you write an email)

How to Learn TWiki

It takes about 30 minutes to learn TWiki.

First read WelcomeGuest in the TWiki.TWiki web.

Then study the TWikiTutorial.

Short demo of basic features.

Collaboration Hints: E-mail and Mailing Lists vs. TWiki

Tools should be used where appropriate:

E-mail and mailing lists: Short lived information like meeting

announcements Sensitive data that should not reach

everybodyTWiki web:

Anything that is more permanent like discussions or documents

Reason: Version control, search and accountability

Collaboration Hints: Software Projects

Each software project has its own TWiki collaboration web (name space) to Discuss and capture design ideas and

requirements Document all aspects of the project

One person should be the designated "collaboration coach" who promotes best practices (but not webmaster)

Team members should bookmark the WebHome page and subscribe in WebNotify.

Collaboration Hints: Organize Projects

Define a category table for the TWiki web to help organize the content. One common way is to define subcategories by tool, i.e. define a ToolCategory that can be set to EditorTool, SimulationTool and so on.

Each tool has it’s own index page.Each web page can be categorized;

content can be listed or searched based on the category.

Collaboration Hints: Organize Projects (cont.)

For each ToolCategory index page define sections with bullet lists: Document list: Content that is well

defined, or on the way to be well defined, i.e. a design document.

Discussion list: Content that is in a preliminary state where team members collaborate on.

Team list: Team members.

Conclusions

The TWiki tool covers most of the documentation and knowledge management needs for for the corporate Intranet world.