Tech Author PlayStation PlayStation Home > SDK > Video Games Document SDK - What is SDK Maintain quality, keep up-to-date, roll out docs with software.
And so we turned to the Wiki. Why: Collaboration -> improved software development Everyone is an author -> more accurate information Constant peer review -> increased quality and keeps pace with change
How will we go with the Wiki? Three issues to solve when creating this new way of working:
How to Design this System How to Control information (Audience) How to get everyone on board. And that’s what I’ll be talking about today.
Structure - Use - Information Reuse - Structure was easy:
Go Home. Use Confluence’s system to create the architecture for workflow. Organize in obvious, distinct categories.
Straightforward. Functional. Good Navigation Gets people where or what they want immediately. That’s what our Navigation does:
Use WikiMarkup to its full Advantage. Team Pages – Uses {cloak} to expand/collapse. {page-tree} navigation to automatically populate links. Once setup, runs on its own. [link|Image] – It turns out people are visual. {add-page:template}image{add-page} Why this works: Lots of Wikimarkup, no editing. Front page, and other rarely edited pages are where you can go nuts with the WikiMarkup. Just make it look simple on the surface.
Arranged by team. So team A sees their key pages at all times.
First two easy. Information Reuse/Single Sourcing is difficult. What is Single Sourcing
How do you re-use information across the space? You don’t. Wiki has some functionality. Impossible to track, logistics nightmare, annoying to update. Instead. Go Home again. Obvious, distinct categories. Object go to objects.
How to Control Information: At a store you have three roles: the customer, cashier, and manager. The customer needs to know how to present the items they want to buy, how to pay for them, and the conditions on returning an item. The cashier needs to know everything a customer knows, plus how to work the till. The manager needs to know everything the customer and cashier know, plus how to run the store. In Confluence how do you get the right information to the right people? And how do you keep sensitive or irrelevant information from going to the wrong readers.
Tackled during development by using Wiki’s templates.
Simple template. Defined Roles. Not perfect, but great basis and adaptable. Added bonus: consistent look and structure to the info itself.
Manual copy + Paste.
Better to have 3 people in a manual publish Than hoping you have no human error from 40 authors.
So how do you get collaboration, 40 authors, and peer review. And clearly separate fact from opinion/debate?
Our team leaders at PlayStation®Home recognize the importance of maintaining up-to-date feature pages, and as a result we are all required work on the Wiki.
Already done. In structure, navigation, and template.
Comments dropped. Went to Forum. Why?
So what did we end up with: A system with very little maintenance. 1 person needs to do a couple a things every release. That’s it. Functional: Gives people what they need anytime they need it. Simple as possible.
