collaborative journalism
HOW TO WIKI
Collaborate with Wired editors and add to our library of projects, hacks, tricks and tips. Browse more than 300 how-to articles and add to them, or start a new one.
For Each Project:
1. Compose a Mission Statement. Not a memo, a mission statement. You don't have to stay up all night waiting for a breakthrough (or a breakdown) to know your project goals. A statement doesn't have to be specific, just an overall goal to get everyone working in the same direction.
2. Establish a communications hub. Pick a publishing tool and set up a place to consolidate team information. A team wiki, a team blog or a shared documents folder on an intranet are great places to get started. Pick a system everyone can access, even from remote offices or while traveling. Most office software packages have collaboration features for teams to share assets and post new documents. There are also web-based services you can use. Post often -- it's the best way to keep the team organized and keep morale up.
3. Track team progress. Ask key team members write weekly "snippets" -- short lists published on the information hub describing what was accomplished in the last week and what needs to be done in the current week. Keeping track of accomplishments means you track everyone's progress without having to micromanage. It's in the workers' best interests to report what they've done to get credit where credit is due.
4. Share your calendars. This keeps everyone on schedule. Online collaborative calendars are a great way to pick meeting times, set deadlines and generally gauge a colleague's bandwidth. Sharing your own calendar allows team members to see how available you are to them. Team calendars can also be a great way to tell if your team has too many meetings. You want to avoid keeping people away from actually doing the work that is needed to finish the project.
5. Document as you go. Good documentation may seem superfluous at first, but you'll be thankful later. Maintaining strong documentation is especially helpful when new people join a project already in progress, or if your project gets put on hold and you need to revisit it later. Encourage a few key people to keep your documentation up-to-date by making it part of their weekly assignments.
6. Postmortem. Meet regularly (once a month to start) and go over what's going well and what isn't. Call out exemplars and give constructive criticism where it's due. Encourage everyone to speak their mind -- and always ask for critiques of how well you've been managing the team. Don't forget, it's a learning process for everyone.
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