As every day goes by, I am becoming a bigger fan of the wiki form. It’s not ideal in every scenario, but I really believe that every organisation should have at least one.
Here’s five ways local gov can use wikis to improve service or staff satisfaction.
1. Procedure Manuals
The wiki is an ideal platform for managing knowledge. Having an online knowledge base of processes and procedures accessed through an intranet would be useful to almost every member of staff. Run it as a wiki, and everyone can keep it up to date and add as much detail as they want.
2. Project Management
Managing projects successfully is all about communication and managing documents effectively. Every project should have a wiki space for discussions and collaborative working to take place. Why email round spreadsheets and word processed documents when you can all work off the same record?
3. Public Consultation
Wikis provide another route into the Council for the views of the community. Now, allowing editing rights to the general public to a Council website might well be a horrifying thought, but various things have to be born in mind. Firstly, a key component of wiki technology is the ability to ‘roll-back’ edits, to remove vandalism and non constructive comments. Secondly, by making it very clear that a site is a wiki, with all that that entails, the information on the site is approached by the reader in a different way. Defra have a wiki and the classic example of a public wiki that works is of course Wikipedia.
4. Improvement and Change Management
Every council has a suggestions box. Nobody ever uses them, and if they do, not a lot happens. But by using a wiki as an open suggestions forum, others can be involved in the development of business cases for improvement opportunities and momentum built up.
5. Knowledge Sharing
Whether lists of useful links, blog posts, or the sharing of home grown knowledge, the wiki can be a useful format for creating a space where people can simply share what they know. Tap into the talent that exists within the council but which you didn’t know about already by empowering people to share what they know on a shared space.
That’s a pretty quick run through, because the potential applications are pretty much limitless. If you’d like to talk more about the possibilities that wikis offer, leave a comment or send me an email!