TWiki Collaboration Tool
An Intranet Publishing Tool
and Knowledge Base Tool
Peter Thoeny
Peter@Thoeny.com
1-408-255-1477
http://TWiki.org/
Agenda
Executive Summary
Challenges: Virtual Team, Intranet
Goals for TWiki Tool
Solution
Benefits of using TWiki
Limitations of TWiki
How to Learn TWiki
Collaboration Hints
Conclusions
Executive Summary
TWiki is a web based collaboration
tool, tailored for organizations with
distributed offices.
It is an integrated set of tools :
A team based intranet publishing tool.
A departmental collaboration tool.
A publishing tool to maintain FAQ and
KB on company web site.
Executive Summary (cont.)
Open Source software (GPL), hosted
at http://TWiki.org/
In use by many companies as a
dynamic Intranet tool (CNN,
Ericsson, Lucent, GE, GTE,
Newbridge, Sun, TI, Motorola,
WebMD,...)
Executive Summary (cont.)
Tool highlights:
Use your browser to create and change
content (web pages.)
Content is a searchable and can be
categorized.
Competes with HTML publishing
tools, e-mail, mailing lists and
usenet.
Challenges: Virtual Team
Challenges a R&D team faces that is
distributed over several locations:
How to brainstorm and work on new
designs.
How to synch different teams.
How to avoid reinventing the wheel.
Challenges: Virtual Team
(cont.)
Typical answers:
 Scheduled conference calls & occasional
visits.
 Exchange documents by e-mail. But:
E-mail gets lost after some time, but content
might be needed again in the future.
Searching e-mail is limited to email client.
E-mail is not hyper-linked and is not
structured, content can’t easily be grouped
into related topics.
E-mail is not version controlled, e.g. it is
difficult to look at a document history.
Challenges: Intranet
Content
Static intranet sites are typically
not very popular.
This is because:
Some content is outdated.
The quantity is limited.
Content is static, it has a
"one webmaster syndrome."
Challenges: Intranet
Content (cont.)
Example of “one webmaster
syndrome.“ :
If I discover a page on the intranet
that has incorrect or insufficient
information, it is too complicated to
find out who the webmaster is and to
tell what should be changed. Result:
Page typically will not get updated.
Goals for TWiki Tool
We had these goals and requirements
when we developed and deployed
TWiki:
Ease of use:
“I am not going to use a tool that is too
cumbersome to use”
Streamline the information flow
between corporate offices, especially
between factory and the field.
Goals (cont.)
Document centric environment, not
tool centric. Type of content:
Intranet content: Linked pages of
product documentation, release notes
and such.
Knowledge Base (KB): Problem /
Solution pairs.
FAQ: Question / Answer pairs.
Goals (cont.)
Promote collaboration:
“Shared knowledge is more then the
sum of its parts.”
Not one webmaster responsible for
content, but each support engineer and
field engineer is a webmaster.
Self regulating system:
Minimize tool administration.
Automated FAQ and KB maintenance.
Goals (cont.)
Quality of Content:
Peer review process that promotes
accurate content.
Used by all engineers on a daily basis
ensures up to date information.
Goals (cont.)
Quantity of Content:
Enough relevant data is needed to find
a solution to a problem.
Process that promotes feeding and
maintaining content.
Version Control of Content:
Find out who changed what and when;
see differences between versions; see
previous versions of documents.
Solution: Web Based
Collaboration
TWiki is an “Instant Intranet”, or a
web based publishing tool that
allows anyone to easily add or
change content by just using a web
browser:
Browse and search content.
Create and change web pages.
Classify web pages, for example as
public FAQ, KB or confidential.
Solution: Ease of Use
Web pages are linked automatically,
no more “404 page not found”
errors.
Create new pages by simply entering
a topic name and filling out details.
File attachments: Add files to a page,
like an email attachment.
Solution: Interactive Tool
Add content “Share Knowledge”
Notification of changes:
Get notified of page changes by email.
A way to keep everybody in synch.
It is also a way to check content by
senior engineers.
Peer review for up to date content:
Fix a posting that is inaccurate or
insufficient.
Solution: Quality and
Quantity
Quality:
User is empowered and encouraged to
make changes to content.
Email notification promotes review.
Up to date information (we eliminated
the “one webmaster syndrome”)
Quantity:
Ease of use promotes contributions.
Statistics with “top contributor list” can
be used for an incentive program.
Solution: Categorization
Pages can be edited in free form.
In addition, each page has meta data,
which classifies and categorizes a page.
Classify:
Declare a page as confidential, public FAQ, or
public KB entry.
Public pages will be published.
Categorize:
Additional meta data like a product category.
Sample Screen Shot
Solution: Version Control
Pages are under version control:
See previous page revisions.
See differences between revisions.
See who changed what and when.
Case Study: Motorola
Motorola UK uses TWiki for the
Systems-on-Chip Design Technology.
Crawford Currie of Motorola: "We are
now hosting 7 different [TWiki] webs,
extending the 'team' from an on-site
project team to a virtual team including
members in Germany, UK, France,
Australia, Russia and the US, with about
60 regular contributors (and growing)."
Case Study: Motorola (cont.)
The TWiki tool helped Motorola’s
virtual teams to work efficiently on
requirements capture, issues lists
and internal documentation.
Benefits of using TWiki
Improved communication for a virtual
team
Documentation that is in synch with project.
Accurate content because of peer review.
Eliminate the “one webmaster syndrome”
Empowered engineers are motivated to
contribute.
Web based
No additional publishing tools needed.
No client side tools to update.
Limitations of TWiki
TWiki is a purely web based tool. This has
the following implications:
The editor is simply an HTML form;
browser editors are not very
sophisticated.
Non WYSIWYG editing; nevertheless rich
text can be written using a very simple
markup language (WikiSyntax). Example:
make text appear in *bold* or in =fixed font=.
(This is basically how you write an email)
How to Learn TWiki
It takes about 30 minutes to learn
TWiki.
First read WelcomeGuest in the
TWiki.TWiki web.
Then study the TWikiTutorial.
 Short demo of basic features.
Collaboration Hints: E-mail
and Mailing Lists vs. TWiki
Tools should be used where appropriate:
E-mail and mailing lists:
Short lived information like meeting
announcements
Sensitive data that should not reach
everybody
TWiki web:
Anything that is more permanent like
discussions or documents
Reason: Version control, search and
accountability
Collaboration Hints:
Software Projects
Each software project has its own TWiki
collaboration web (name space) to
Discuss and capture design ideas and
requirements
Document all aspects of the project
One person should be the designated
"collaboration coach" who promotes best
practices (but not webmaster)
Team members should bookmark the
WebHome page and subscribe in
WebNotify.
Collaboration Hints:
Organize Projects
Define a category table for the TWiki web
to help organize the content. One common
way is to define subcategories by tool, i.e.
define a ToolCategory that can be set to
EditorTool, SimulationTool and so on.
Each tool has it’s own index page.
Each web page can be categorized;
content can be listed or searched based on
the category.
Collaboration Hints:
Organize Projects (cont.)
For each ToolCategory index page
define sections with bullet lists:
Document list: Content that is well
defined, or on the way to be well
defined, i.e. a design document.
Discussion list: Content that is in a
preliminary state where team members
collaborate on.
Team list: Team members.
Conclusions
The TWiki tool covers most of the
documentation and knowledge
management needs for for the
corporate Intranet world.