How do you run an organization composed of thousands of volunteers scattered around the world? That’s the question asked by The Mozilla School of Management, a feature in the February issue of Inc. magazine. The article resonated with me because the answers apply equally to an organization’s approach to successful wiki collaboration. In a series of blog posts, I’ll look at each principle and how it applies:
Principle #1 – It’s the community, stupid
The best course of action isn’t necessarily the one that will prove the most immediately profitable. The best decisions are the ones that win the most buy-in from the most people.
How this applies to wiki collaboration:
Be patient when you introduce a wiki to your organization. Some of the payoff won’t be immediately apparent because it takes time for people to change the way they work, so it’s more important at the beginning to focus on getting broad support and organic growth from all across the organization. Once people see that wiki collaboration actually replaces less effective uses of other forms of communication, like trying to collaboratively edit a document via email, and gets things done faster, growth will follow.
For more on how to effectively introduce a wiki in your organization, visit Wikipatterns.com.
