Wiki forces are upon us. With the wiki concept, an individual posts an idea publicly. Then over time, subsequent contributors add to, adjust, or take away from the idea iteratively. Over time, with input from many players, what starts as a primitive idea can grow into a well-developed statement. The most dramatic example of the power of wikis is Wikipedia.
Recognition that collaborative efforts can lead to great results is growing in both the public and private sectors. What distinguishes the wiki approach from previous collaborative initiatives is that contributors to the process can be “amateurs” rather than professionals. Anyone can contribute. The contributions of some may be modest, focusing on the correction of spelling and grammatical errors. The contributions of others may be deeper – for example, they may focus on developing and refining foundational ideas. The Wikipedia experience has shown that well-articulated and valuable insights can emerge through this process.
Government agencies are mulling over the wiki phenomenon to determine its value in the public sector. Its value can be seen at three levels of operation:
• Project level: In building new systems, requirements can be harvested through wiki exercises. That is, a primitive statement of system requirements can be posted publicly. Customers and technical people can be asked to build on this primitive statement in order to create a full-blown set of requirements that reflect both customer and technical sensibilities.
• Intra-agency level: When an agency plans to launch a program that will change how it operates, inputs from employees and contractors handled through wiki processes can help the agency to formulate the program architecture more quickly and comprehensively than by setting up a task force to do the job.
• Inter-agency level: Government agencies tend to operate as stove pipes. However, this can lead to poor results, as the 9/11 catastrophe showed us. Because US intelligence agencies did not share their knowledge and insights regarding terrorist activity, the US was unable to anticipate and prevent the 9/11 attack. Government agencies can establish wikis to span organizational boundaries. The intelligence community did this after 9/11 when the created Intellipedia, three wikis that solicit contributions from employees of 16 intelligence agencies. Early results from this effort are encouraging.
There are two basic advantages to a wiki approach. First, because it is carried out in a virtual environment, it can be implemented quickly. There is no need to assemble committees of experts who deliberate indefinitely. Second, because it solicits input from a wide range of contributors spanning organizational boundaries, it has the potential of generating solutions that are both deep and broad.
Government should experiment with cross-boundary collaboration at the project, intra-agency, and inter-agency level. The tendency of bureaucracies to operate inside boxes is well-known, as are the perils – particularly the curse of parochialism. However, in exploring the strengths of collaborative action, government should avoid marching around with the wiki tool in search of applications. First, it should identify situations where collaborative inputs would help it function more effectively. Then it should determine whether a wiki approach is appropriate to engender meaningful collaboration, or whether some other approach is better. Finally, it needs to address the details of implementing a wiki solution – Are we able to establish a wiki platform? Will our organizational culture promote meaningful participation by the intended audience? As wiki solutions to problems emerge, will they be taken seriously by the agency’s management?
COMMENTS
The comments by iplv and Bens indicate just how far government needs totravel before it can claim to be "efficient". Wikis do not CREATE problems -- they expose them.
As a database designer and administrator, I was surprise to find that 80 percent of my time was spent learning about (and reforming) the flow of data within a very small company. Given the massive size of the federal bureaucracy, I would not be surprised if it would take years and massive effort to streamline processes and flows. OTOH, that's what politicians and bureaucrats have promised since forever, so why not give it a go.
David Zetland 05/28/08 11:21 am ET
There are tons, and I mean tons, of regulations regarding websites' contents versus DOD and Army regulations (and I'm sure Navy, Air Force and Marines regaulations too). While all employees handling a wiki should have "some" information assurance training... that training is not only weak, but IA training and implementations are still seen impediments to productivity. So the question is... if "everyone" and "anyone" (with CAC, etc., access) can post stuff to a wiki... but those "anyones" are not possibly up-to-date on all the rules and regulations regarding content... someone needs to monitor the input... CONSTANTLY! The average employee is NOT given sufficient IA training to possibly keep up with all the IA rules related to wbesites unless that is part of their job. And if you keep thinking about this problem, you realize that the more people post things, and the more people get access to a wiki, the "reviewing the wiki contents" task becomes a full time job not for one person, but for a team of people... simply because there is more to review every day. To compound the problem, with our never ending concept of doing more with less, IA staffs are past beying in the bare bones... meaning the IA staffs can't possibly be reading the daily postings and updates. So it quickly becomes an "I thought your team was reviewing the wiki content"... or, "I thought that was IT's or IA's job". So security is a HUGE problem with wikis. I have worked with many people and many years by now. I'm very aware that the only people that are really somewhat up-to-date on IA rules are the people that deal with IA stuff on a daily basis... and everyone else will only sit around pleading ignorance "when" (not "if") something that shouldn't be posted gets posted. DIACAP needs to ensure that any agencies with wikis explicitly name the people in charge of these reviews, or post the existence of the wikis in their POA&Ms. Then it's up to the ACAs (not the DAAs, remember?) to approve the policies and mitigations. Remember, too many DAAs were giving "wink, wink, nod nod" approvals on too many things, which is one excuse as to why we had to switch from DITSCAP to DIACAP.
All that said, the idea for a wiki is great for collaborations. But wikis need to be internal to organizations (not available from the internet) to not have such a huge risk. Letting wiki access on the internet is a huge risk.
iplv 05/09/08 11:52 am ET
While the Wiki idea is great for certain areas, I'm not sure that everybody in the world should have a shot at writing procedures for a kidney transplant. It seems a little dangerous.
While that example may be out of context, what about a more realistic example realated directly to what we have above, a systems implementation. Let's run with the assumption that the wiki will be restricted to only government employees who have at least have some knowledge of what the system may potentially need. You still run into problems.
If the system is for, say, managing the pipeline of patents, somebody who works at GSA and deals really well with contracts in a pipeline, and has implemented a system to handle that, isn't really going to be able to provide valuable knowledge.
The main reason for this is that a contractual pipeline is more about what is written in a contract and what the needs are for the final product, the system used by the USPTO has a larger need for research of other patents to make sure that the patent can stand on it's own. If the GSA person changes specs to reflect what they think the system should have, then the research element may be left off, rendering the system completely ineffective.
There is one way around this, though, and that is through moderation. If a Moderator were to have this kind of knowledge of the systems need and could vet out whether or not the research component of the system were important, they could reject the GSA person's changes while providing ample support for the rejection.
Moderation does remove some of the aspect of "Anyone can contribute" mentality, but it does protect the project from failure.
In short, wikis are a great idea when implemented and used with care.
Ben Segars 05/09/08 09:22 am ET
My agency has received great value at low cost from our internal wiki that we started 4 months ago. We use it to collaborate on (1) product reviews, (2) processes, (3) policies, and (4) project documentation. By some estimates, it has cut in half the time we spent creating these collaborative deliverables.
Nicholas Johnson, EIA 05/09/08 08:30 am ET
I think that the wiki world that we are all moving into is going to be GREAT thing for
all living in virtual world that is upon us now,
like being in one large worldly commuunity with everybody sharing the knowledge of the world.
Phillip . 05/07/08 10:25 pm ET
One thing I'm curious about...how do agencies handle classification/security on their wikis?
Can collaboration only take place between contributors with similar clearances?
Does that tend to limit the interchange of knowledge and ideas that is the chief benefit of a wiki?
Matt 05/07/08 12:10 pm ET