Re: Building a documentation knowledgebase

["Mark Baker" <listsub -at- analecta -dot- com>]

Gene Kim-Eng wrote:

> If you can't get even your information developers to
> standardize on one bloody template and make document content more
> consistent, your chances of getting them to do all the things they'll need
> to do for a kb, like checking things in and out and entering key search
> words in meta data for every piece of information they upload, will be
> nil and investing in a kb will be time and money thrown down a rathole.

I think this is an oversimplification. Certainly adopting a common template
is simpler than working with a knowledge base. But people's willingness to
adopt a new process is not based primarily on how easy or difficult it is to
do, but on whether they see a real benefits either to themselves or to
people that they care about (which may be the company, the customers, or
their colleagues in the next department). If people do think a knowledge
base will benefit them, they may be willing to use it, despite the
difficulties, and if the don't think that the common template will benefit
them, then they probably won't be willing to use it, even if it is easy to
do so.

Understand, I'm not saying that people will feel that a knowledge base will
benefit them. They may or they may not. Ditto on the common template. I'm
simply pointing out that motive is more important than difficulty in judging
people's likelihood of accepting change.

Mark Baker
Analecta Communications