Many Councils require a business case to be developed prior to the implementation of any new initiative. This page is an attempt to put together a generic business case for the implementation of a wiki-based Council Encyclopedia. It is still a work in progress, but should be completed by the end of June 2013.
1 Executive Summary
1.1 Issue
Staff (particularly new staff) are unable to easily locate information about specific council assets and activities.
Knowledge is lost to the organisation when long serving staff members leave the organisation.
One part of the organisation is unaware of the activities of other parts of the organisation leading to duplication of effort.
Photos of Council assets and activities are poorly indexed, making them difficult to find.
1.2 Anticipated Outcomes
Prompt and more accurate responses to ratepayer and internal customer enquiries.
Retention of knowledge otherwise lost when a long serving staff member leaves the organisation.
Clearer understanding by all staff members of the scope of activities carried out by the organisation.
Less duplication of effort across the organisation.
New employees can be trained up faster.
More collaborative Council culture.
1.3 Recommendation
1.4 Justification
2 Business Case Analysis Team
3 Problem Definition
3.1 Problem Statement
Staff (particularly new staff) are unable to easily locate information about specific council assets and activities.
Knowledge is lost to the organisation when long serving staff members leave the organisation.
One part of the organisation is unaware of the activities of other parts of the organisation leading to duplication of effort.
New staff waste a lot of time trying to understand how a particular part of the organisation works; who has responsibility for specific activities; what is the current status of the system; where to find relevant information and resources.
There is a misunderstanding of the goals of a document management system. It is not designed for knowledge sharing but for document archiving and retrieval. This misunderstanding is often an excuse for not taking seriously knowledge sharing tools such as wikis.
3.2 Organizational Impact
The time required to train a new employ could potentially be halved. This can lead to increased productivity in a shorter period of time.
Less time will be wasted 're-inventing the wheel', thereby making better use of time and resources which can result in money saved.
Mistakes of the past are less likely to be repeated. This will save money.
3.3 Technology Migration
4 Project Overview
4.1 Project Description
4.2 Goals and Objectives
4.3 Project Performance
4.4 Project Assumptions
4.5 Project Constraints
4.6 Major Project Milestones
5 Strategic Alignment
6 Cost Benefit Analysis
Cost Benefit Analysis
There are two main options:
- Hosted on Council servers
- Hosted online
There are also many sub-options, most of which are very inexpensive or in some cases free.
A typical (and arguably the best) option for a Council hosted wiki is "MediaWiki" which is the engine behind Wikipedia. The software is free, it has many great features, a large range of extensions, it is very robust, and has more users than any other wiki engine. Most IT department will be familiar with the software and should be able to install it within a matter of hours. The ongoing technical support required is also very limited.
There are also quite a few hosted options, one of the best is Wikidot which costs $239.90 / year.