Starting off on a new project, the ideal way for knowledge management?

Question

We are starting off on a new from scratch implementation of an eCommerce solution and have decided on the framework to use too. There will be people joining the project who never really had any experience working on this framework. How should we go about doing the knowledge management/transfer? What could be the other challenges we need to be prepared for and how? I can think of starting a WIKI with the most often needed content and addressing the most common roadblocks...Is that a good idea?

Answer 1

A glossary will go a long way. Make sure that you and your team use the glossary when talking. There's no point having specific words for things if you don't use them correctly. Stand up meetings each day should help with whatever roadblocks you have. Make sure that your team has as high bandwidth communication as possible but also allow for quiet time where people can focus. Maybe have the first 15min. of each hour as a time when people can walk up to each other and ask questions etc. Then the other 45min is silent time. Reassess this to get a balance that everyone fits with.

Answer 2

I think this is the ideal situation for a wiki. Let the developers choose which wiki to use, because they're the ones that will be using it!

Answer 3

I second the wiki recommendation - we have had a great deal of success using it to form a knowledge base and glossary for our projects.

Another technique that has worked well for us is creating a scratch repository (e.g. SVN, Git, etc.) for the purpose of technology ramp up spikes. We're currently working on an enterprise-scale project leveraging Spring's OSGi support, and we created several spike projects to explore different facets of the technology. This helped us grasp the technology before getting too encumbered by the business needs.

As far as challenges for which to be prepared? Expect the unexpected. Any time you embark on using a new framework/technology, you will run into roadblocks and your initial velocity will suffer. My best advice - simple determination. Don't give up on your framework at the first sign of stormy weather. Work through the issues. Eventually you'll clear most of the hurdles and your velocity will increase exponentially as the entire team gets more comfortable with the technology.

Answer 4

There is this thread:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?biz.5.738060.3

You might consider Alfresco.com's open source solution for content management.

Answer 5

I think the Wiki is a good idea, but there is also no substitute for real code. To that end a good quality (reference) implementation of a single function, which shows all the layers in the code stack, ie from browser/form down to the DB and back again.