On Nov 20, 2007 6:38 PM, Scott Harney <scotth at scottharney.com> wrote:
> > You know, you would think that, but in practical use, we really haven't > found that to be true. I suppose if your organization has strict > documentation format requirements, this wouldn't be a good fit. And you > could break up a twiki into multiple "webs" each with its own groups of > authors/editors who control the content underneath. My organization is in the formative stage of document management. We're in two groups : one that has an effective, predictable but inefficient means of documentation ( document templates & directory structure for projects) and the other that is becoming more formal in its process due to project growth and team growth. (Very small shop growing fast in work and talent) The first group's documentation style/need/contents reflect a predictable process by capturing named rigid artifacts and correspondences. They do the same thing-ish over and over. On the other hand, the formative group is a development group trying to : insure all developers understand what they're working on (background & constantly shifting requirements), keep track of projects (project management), manage defects, and feed the process that generates user documentation. Our biggest challenge is a huge critical mass of domain & system knowledge is required just to start doing any practical development. The systems we deal with are complex (but not that complicated), and the nature of the information is difficult to chain in an exposed predictable manner. (I feel tired just thinking about it). (Now that I think of it, a wiki, with clonable sections and some initial organization is looking good for this stuff). Maintaining proper currency with the documents and schedules is a bear. > We've been using twiki (http://twiki.org) on our team for about two > years now. Our team consists of unix, mainframe and storage > administrators and engineers. We have a multitude of projects as well > as daily operational responsibilities to keep track of and while people > in the group have their particular points of focus, we all need to be > aware of how to pick up some of the other responsibilities. > > We use numerous add-ons, some of which shipped with it, and some of > which we added after the fact I looked over the url - this impresses me as a fairly mature implementation of a wiki. Even a doxy plugin. Of course, making developers churn out useful, appropriately detailed documents is like pulling teeth from a mule, and this, of course, is easier than making them use a formal system. :-) Scott, Do you mind if I contact you off list for a couple of other questions? Thanks, -CMB
