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On September 15, 2006 , the Human Resources staff of The IMA Financial Group introduced employee self-service (IMAESS) throughout the organization. Before the big day, there was a lengthy discussion regarding training for our associates. Should we offer “formal” training, and if so, how many sessions, which locations, how in-depth, etc.? After much debate, we decided to provide written documentation and take a “wait and see” approach. I bet you can guess how I spent the evening of September 14—writing end user documentation as fast as my little fingers could type!
Our strategy paid off and no “formal” training was needed. As questions arose, I simply added more detail to the original material and as new features were introduced, I prepared, posted, and distributed additional documentation as needed. Although my method of madness was working, it certainly wasn't the most efficient way of keeping the information in a central location for easy access by the user community.
I'm sure most of you are probably familiar with Wikipedia, which is a free Encyclopedia that anyone can edit over the World Wide Web. Did you know that you can use the same software platform behind it, MediaWiki, for internal, content-driven documentation? Several months ago my I.T. support person caught what I refer to as the “Wiki Bug”. As a department they had a lot of internal documentation they needed to keep, but they also wanted the ability to push certain pieces out to our associates via the IMA intranet. Knowing that showing me new and efficient technology (that is easy to use) is like giving Eric Clapton a new guitar, he sent me a Wikipedia “cheatsheet” and I am no longer singing the documentation blues.
As a true Web 2.0 platform, MediaWiki is really easy to learn, and the results are concise, great looking documentation that can be linked easily to your intranet (or through Vista)!
The “contents” are built dynamically.
By selecting a topic, you are immediately directed where you need to go!
Obviously there are lots of different applications that can be used to write your user documentation, but without being an expert in HTML code, Wiki has been a quick and easy alternative to compiling and distributing information. When a user calls with a specific question, I can either direct them to “Support” through IMAESS, or shoot them a quick e-mail with the direct link to what they are looking for.
Happy Wiki-ing!
TeddiAnne Krehbiel
Automation/Workflow Analyst
The IMA Financial Group, Inc.
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