This is Katabuchi (@hotchemi) from Smart Device Group.

I participated in the Qiita/Qiita:Team Meetup #8 held at the Open Network Space Daikanyama, and the members from Smart Device Group, which I belong to, gave the presentation of some practical use samples of the Qiita:Team titled as “Qiita:Team used among 100 people”. The hash tag is #qiita_meetup on the day.

Task to be solved

A tool is a means of problem solving in any kind of field, so the significance of a tool introduction tends to be shallower if the problem to be solved is not defined.

Our members at Smart Device Group, which I belong to and is a relatively big organization with 100 members, had the following problems:

  • To begin with, a culture where engineers send out information is not incubated.
  • Since we did not have a platform to send out information, we communicated with each other mainly via e-mail and in meetings. We used to e-mail even technical information.
  • Although there were lots of engineers here, the communication was made to the team only, and knowledge sharing beyond the team was not made.

To solve these problems, we decided to introduce “an engineer-friendly platform where engineers can send out information easily and can communicate with each other interactively”.

Ways to be introduced

When we were wondering which tool should be introduced, we reviewed SKIP from Sonic Garden and Confluence from Atlassian besides Qiita:Team. But we finally chose Qiita:Team because we valued easy-to-post/use and its simple UI.

The other two tools above are also very useful, so you can choose ones along the context of organization.

Introduction of the tool

It had been a month of trials to adopt the tool, and then in the introduction stage, we focused hardest on easy-writings at all events.

We took the following measures, with which the members started writing step by step.

  • Pick out the tags often used such as iOS, Android, lunch, poem, and so on in advance.
  • Do not get all the people involved at once, but start it with the early adopters and then with the other members gradually.
  • Increase the time to use the tool by writing meeting records and daily reports in Qiita:Team.
  • By making a project page especially for the beginners, it lets them understand what the tool is for and how and when to use the tool.
  • Keep educational activities

The tool is just a waste if it is not used even though it is excellent. We need to engage in educational activities with slow and steady effort, which is my honest impression in retrospect on reflection.

We need to be persevered in incubating the culture at an organization which is not easily done in a single day.

Introduction outcome

Now the engineers post about 20 activities in average per day (10 for technology information, 4 for daily reports, and 6 for meeting reports), which is something happy for us and it takes less time than we expected before. We thought the members felt negative in use of the markdown format. Even non-engineers learned it and post their activities.

We have got excellent results as such in below;

  • We have gain a strong bond between engineers and QA members by sharing test points and knowledge about some books.
  • It has become easy to hold a study meeting in ourcompany.
  • We have got to hear some voice of opinions of detailed request and so on from each member.
  • We have got some members to post to original Qiita.

Tasks

We, of course, have some tasks. Since the flow of our timeline runs more quickly than we expected, we cannot get enough time to check each posting. In addition, we’ve not had any idea of what to do when we want to share information with only certain members in a use case in our company.

When we have some problems with people from Increments, they said that they have discussed the solutions to the problem mentioned above, so we are looking forward to hearing from them.

Summary

  • Interaction of people beyond a team using Qiita:Team
  • Success of knowledge centralization among groups such as meeting records and technical information
  • Sharing real time information at Qiita instead of sending information out via email
  • Operating by a team with over 100 people without any problems
  • Problems that are difficult to follow the postings due to too much information

We at Recruit Technologies strongly aim to share knowledge about improving activities of engineers and team building.