One of the benefits of working in the services side of the software industry is that you don’t have to deal with end users pirating your products— after all, people can’t be cloned. And yet, because they cannot be cloned, it can become problematic when trying to get everyone on the same page. This is one of the biggest challenges I’ve experienced when it comes to creating a services-oriented business.
Running a software business has its fair share of technological problems. While it is both exciting and thrilling to bring on a new client who uses your company’s services, there are several hurdles one must jump to ensure excellence. The biggest snag we experienced was transferring knowledge and context from the sales team to the delivery team. This muddled flow of information threatened our client projects.
After looking through several collaboration products, we remedied the snag by using a “wiki” in our company. What, exactly, is a “wiki”? Quite simply, it is a community website that is open for contributions and updates at anytime. Think of it as a virtual whiteboard that’s constantly being revised and updated. The popular online information website, Wikipedia.org, is the perfect example of this system.
With our wiki in place, we decided to partition the system into the relevant “spaces,” each designed for a separate project where staff members and clients could readily contribute information. Whenever new documents or information needed to be distributed, we placed them in the secure wiki website. Instead of emailing large attachments – which could be annoying to deliver – we simply emailed clients links to the documents online.
This is just one example of our wiki work. Outside of information sharing, we use our wiki system as a collaboration hub for other business items, such as HR policies, personal photo blogs, team status updates and new product ideas. Many of these tasks were previously handled by the company Intranet, which, like most outdated technology tools that companies use, is now dead and buried.
Thanks to our wiki system, our knowledge transfer between client engagements is pretty tight and in shape. And most of the information is captured and communicated efficiently. The wiki has been a great tool for operational, day-to-day use, and it’s become far better than servers or e-mail when it comes to storing important information and documents.
Today, effective communication is still a skill that needs to be mastered in our company. And while technology can help us along the way, there are specific skills required for effective communications. Using a wiki helps, because it is a great way to provide a blank canvas with which the team can work.However, like any technology, it is a tool, not a complete solution.