1. Goals and Principles

The most important knowledge in an organization is related to the organizational processes. These are considered in the context of quality management. The main component of a quality management system is a standardization of the processes to achieve a result with this defined quality. This standardization is achieved through documentation, implementation, maintenance and continuous improvement.

In terms of realization and maintenance, a wiki can only be of passive help by serving as comprehensive, up-to-date and, above all, comprehensible documentation.

Documentation and improvement

Wiki as QM system

If you consider the requirements for documentation with the possibility of constant and timely improvement, a wiki is ideal. Documentation makes the information available for further use through text, images and drawings. All this can be represented in a wiki. Even multimedia content can be easily integrated.

Accessibility of process descriptions

The process description should be as detailed as possible, but also easily accessible. Here a wiki again has much better properties than comparable systems, since there is almost infinite storage space with digital technology. With its single-page structure, the wiki enables users to capture small, segmented pieces of information that are embedded in the entire system through categorization and, above all, linking.

Continuous improvement

The requirement for continuous improvement is also met by a wiki. Individual process descriptions can be quickly supplemented with strategic or operational additions or changed for improvement.

Improvement of project management

In project management, the requirements and processes of strategic management are applied (adapted to the respective project).

With the general definition and conception as well as the concrete planning, you now have an ideal project plan. This way, resources, finances, times and internal (for example departmental releases) and external (for example preparatory work by external companies) interfaces are defined.

The art of project management now lies in keeping the project on the critical path through adjustments, which means through small changes in the plan. However, these plan changes must always be made in the context of their dependencies.

A project wiki now has the following advantage:

• Dependencies can be described freely and universally (no extra system for time and money)
• The entire team can track changes and fine-tune their own steps
• Changes can quickly be made transparent and traceable
• In each case, up-to-date documentation is available

In addition, at the end of the project you automatically have complete documentation for later projects. Ideally, all project experience is incorporated into the strategic process definition.

Of course, there is also special project management software that better handles certain special functions (for example, time management, personnel). However, this software always operates in isolation and cannot represent all other processes. The strict specification of data streams and formats increases the speed but cannot respond flexibly to project specifics.