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50 tips to get your wiki up and running

March 19th, 2010

In the past few weeks we have tweeted daily on tips to start a wiki (#wikitip) and keep it alive. We have assembled the list here. For your reading comfort we have grouped them according to the theme. Let us know which ones you like best and make sure to comment and add your own.

How, when to start a wiki

  1. Name your wiki a knowledge base
  2. Whenever you need to get 4 or more people aligned on a topic: get yourself a wiki.
  3. Frequently asked questions are one of the best topics for a dedicated wiki.
  4. Share your wiki with your customers and suppliers for support issues.
  5. Don't have a crm system? Set up wiki page/customer and use search to find customers/contacts/projects/tel nrs.
  6. Member of a club? Set up a wiki to document club meetings, events, member pages
  7. Student? Set up wiki for old exam questions.
  8. Set up wiki for your unit's SOPs (standard operating procedures)
  9. Meeting room/overhead reservation: set up wiki page
  10. Organizing a course? Set up a wiki with all url's, background articles, section highlights,...
  11. How to use a wiki to set up a new website? Nice customer case on Industry Week.
  12. Create a dedicated wiki for any event: post agreements, agenda, participants, presentations
  13. If you have no formal bug/cr tracking, consider using a dedicated wiki.
  14. Crisis situation? Consider setting up a wiki.


Rules of thumb

  1. Read a wiki as a new employee on his/her first day: can he/she understand the work of the team?
  2. Demystify your wiki: Give everyone a personal page, everyone will at least update one page
  3. Lower the barrier to enter new information by agreeing on a [draft] flag in the page title.
  4. Agree on: "If it's not in the wiki, it is not agreed"
  5. Top 4 wiki enemies: intranets, knowledge bases, email and shared network drives
  6. First page in your wiki: personal page explaining who you are and what you do. It gets it going in the right way.
  7. Give as much as you can people update rights
  8. Add scaffolds to the wiki, that are outlines that will guide people
  9. Almost spring! Yet another reason to clean up that good'ol wiki main page


Get attention, keep attention

  1. If you get your wiki up and running, you'll to spend effort to get people coming back to the wiki.
  2. Create reasons to visit your wiki: Create meeting reservation page on the wiki
  3. Refresh your home page from time to time (e.g. announcements, new picture,..)
  4. Build up a glossary of terms in a wiki
  5. Mail important wiki updates to team members: mail the url, not the page.
  6. A project plan is more than tasks and deadlines. Enter all deliverables&task descriptions in a wiki.
  7. Create reasons to visit your wiki: Add all meeting agendas + minutes + actions on the wiki (this introduces edit cycles)
  8. Include wiki updates as regular project tasks. Assign task owners.
  9. Look on slideshare.com for fancy wiki introduction slides
  10. Add your company wiki url in every team member's email signature
  11. Add a team member's famous quotes page. Add all stuff too embarrassing for public tweeting
  12. Create reasons to visit your wiki: Create a staff list + contact info
  13. Create reasons to visit your wiki: Add team indicators to the wiki
  14. Put number of wiki updates as a team indicator on the team room's whiteboard


This should go to the wiki

  1. Watch out for emails with attachments, probably this can go in the wiki.
  2. Topics to be provided are best marked with: "please someone add this page on xyz"
  3. Agreements on processes, best practices,... add them on a wiki page
  4. Paste sections from the project methodology you are supposed to use in your project wiki
  5. Ask at least twice per day: can I find that in the wiki? If not, have someone add it.
  6. Create a few wiki pages with ideas for improvement. Note down decisions: reject, implement, onhold
  7. Migrate word documents with revision marks to a dedicated wiki page
  8. Add team members' holiday schedule in a wiki page


Get it rolling

  1. Add a phone book page with msn-id, skype-id, homepage,.. for all team members
  2. Add a recommended use page to set out wiki guidelines, terms of use, wiki purpose, etc
  3. Break up overly long pages into sub pages


Special category

  • Need a personal wiki? Use tiddlywiki, a wiki in a file, works everywhere&every time

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