How to use a Wiki to Document Business Procedures and Responsibilities
A Wiki is a handy tool for documenting things. What makes a Wiki a good solution compared to maintaining a word document, is that it scales, is easy to locate, it’s easy for multiple people to maintain, and it retains a history.
For these reasons I’ve decided to use a Wiki for internal use.
In a previous post I wrote about the HalOtis Organizational Strategy. I’ve given all those positions their own page, and fully listed all the responsibilities in detail. In the future as the tasks handled become more well defined, I can expand the Wiki to include details on the procedures that those people do.
Over time the wiki will become a resource where for example come tax time the CFO could refer to find what forms were needed, the time lines needed so that every year the process becomes more well documented and easier.
An added benefit is that when it comes time to hire someone new into that position, the transition will be smoothed. Or if someone in one of those positions leaves unexpectedly, their knowledge isn’t completely gone with them.
If the business is ever at the point where it could be sold or franchised, this documentation becomes the system that will help define how to run the business. It adds value of the business.
Hi again.
Thanks for this post.
I just recently read an article about organising all of one’s info using a wiki. Applying that to documenting all of the info for your business developement process is an awesome idea!
What kind of wiki CMS are you using? Or are you using a provider like pbwiki, jotspot, etc?
Out of those I assume that jotspot would be the best since it was bought by Google, which means that it will be integrated with all of the other Google accounts like Docs ans Spreadsheets, Calendar, Gmal, etc. Then everything can be organised seamlessly, right?
I installed wikimedia’s wiki CMS before to create a “tokyo survival guide” but there was so much to learn in order to use the program and laziness set in…
Anyway, thanks again for this post. All of your business dev. posts have been very useful.
Cheers,
Tori
p.s. I am currently using a Google Document to create an office manual for a friend who has a small business.
I wonder how is compares to a wiki and where a wiki might be better/worse?
You mentioned that a wiki scales, is easy to locate, it’s easy for multiple people to maintain, and it retains a history.
Google Docs also allows collaboration and it keeps a history of edits (and allows reverts) just like a wiki.
But as far as scaling goes, having links between multiple documents in Google Docs would probably become a chaotic mess. So wiki wins on that. About being easy to locate (do you mean easy to search and find info?) Google Docs has a search feature that lets you find the document you want by searching for words in the document, but I guess depending on what kind of wiki you use wiki might be better.
btw, what exactly do you mean by scaling? I’m guessing you mean as the number of pages grows.
How do you structure your wiki (since it works in articles and categories)? An article for each position?
And, in your wiki if you have muliple articles organised by categories and links going between articles and here to there inside of an article(instead of the one document you would have usine a word document) how do you print out and organise a physical copy of your manual?
hmmm, maybe you do need to, yeah? Unfortunately for me I have to make a physical copy for my friend.
He runs an interior decorating workroom and has workers that manufacture all sorts of furniture and window coverings. He manages all of the workroom employees, oversees the installations, and handles customer service. The other functions (whatever he doesn’t want to do) I’ve lumped together as office work because it will probably be handled by only one person, “an office worker”.
They will be responsible for:
-recording all business transactions in quickbooks.
-creating estimates and invoices
-placing orders with vendors (by phone and fax)
-processing customer credit card transactions
-etc.
And so what I am doing now is getting my friend’s books in order, performing these functions for him and at the same time creating a manual describing all of these functions so that he can hire someone (inexperienced and cheap) to do it in the future.
I’m hoping to roll all of this work I am doing for him into a package I will use to offer business development consulting to local small businesses.
Wow, that was a long p.s. :)
Well, if you are still reading you can see that I have a definite interest in what you are blogging about and look forward to hearing more about your projects, etc. Feel free to contact me by email also.