There are plenty of examples of individuals, teams, and entire organizations getting a wiki setup, but where the expected impact was simply not there. This might be from expectations that were too high, less-than-stellar communication about what the wiki was for, or the lack of a champion that pushed adoption. However, the most common reason that a wiki initiative sputters out is that people don't see the value (or don't see enough value) to make it worth changing the way they work- even by the small amount that is required for good enterprise wikis.
Based on our experience, we have identified several things that you can do to revitalize your wiki:
1. Talk to Your Wiki Provider
We have seen hundreds of wiki implementations. You can talk to us about why you got the wiki in the first place and discuss thoughts on why it hasn't worked as well as you would have liked. In most cases, at the end of a 30 minute conversation, you will have several ideas to get people back into your wiki.
2. Simple = Success
People can sometimes bite off more than they can chew. Expecting that you will be able to use a wiki to immediately address 10 - 20 issues that your organization has is not reasonable. You will end up making progress on only a few of those issues- and not enough to solve any one of them. By picking just one issue, or even one aspect of an issue (like communicating customer announcements to internal staff), you will be able to focus your team on a great use case for your wiki- and have a great example to build from.
3. Build on What Works
There may be a rare case in which you would start from scratch with your content, but most likely, there are portions of your wiki that serve a valuable function. Interview people in your organization to find out what is useful, then archive what is not. Now you can continue to build on the content that is valuable, and people will have a great resource for those topics.
4. Address the Problem AND the Perception
Create a wiki page where everyone can contribute their thoughts and issues with your wiki. Most of the time there are only a couple major points from each person- and most of those will usually be the same concerns. Once you have the issues out in the open, work with the people who contributed those ideas to find solutions. By getting buy-in from some of the more vocal and respected people in your organization, you will get better use out of your wiki, and others will follow suit. The people who helped create the poor perception of the wiki will then be advocates for it.
5. Create a Method of Feedback
Make sure that you don't stop this process after implementing some of the ideas above- or implementing any of your own ideas! Other issues will emerge as your organization changes (growth, process changes, responsibilities shifting, etc.) and you need to have a method to capture the concerns that people have. A wiki page can work quite well for this, but someone needs to be actively monitoring it. It is essential to take action on people's concerns- and then to communicate the action that has been taken. If people feel that their ideas are taken seriously, and they see progress being made, they will be very likely to continue giving you the feedback you need to make your wiki a great success.
