Planning for success
If groups are really lucky they may perform some planning when they first implement Confluence. This might take the form of engaging with a consultant, or using in-house workers to help plan things out. Many times, however, they just jump in and start using it. They might do this for a number of reasons, ranging from lack of talent, to perceived lack of time, to perceived lack of need. Regardless, this sets them up for failure.
On the plus side Confluence is fairly intuitive in many places, so groups are able to see some success even without proper planning. Where they run into issues, however, is when things begin to get more complex or as time goes on. I frequently see this expressed as individual groups or teams having a well-managed space or set of pages, but across the organization things are hard to find and manage. Frequently I hear that “Confluence is broken” - indicating individuals can’t find what they need.
The good news is that Confluence isn’t broken, it just isn’t being used properly. Systems are just toolkits, and if you use a tool the wrong way it’s not really the tools fault. Keeping this in mind helps me find a solution - just figure out how to use the tool, and an important part of that is planning.
What’s it take?
Planning involves a number of things, including figuring out who will be using your instance, what they need, what features you'll use and who will maintain everything.
Determine your audience
Determining your audience is the first step in planning, after all if you don’t know who is going to use Confluence you can’t meet their needs. Typically I start this by brainstorming by myself or with others to identify possible user groups. I try to keep these groups broad - “Engineers”, “Contractors”, “Customers” etc.
Consider their needs
Once you’ve got a good idea of your audience you’ll need to think through their needs. What do Engineers need access to? When someone joins your organization what information is critical to a successful start? I begin this by brainstorming, but then I go to those groups and ask for their input. Frequently this helps me identify needs I couldn’t have figured out on my own. By the end of this step I’ll have a list of topics or other information to include for those groups.
Determine features
Only after I’ve figured out the audience and what they need do I dig into features. (Doing this backwards is a very common mistake… the needs should drive features, not the other way around!). This lets me make informed decisions about what specific features should be turned on. In the case of Confluence this means enabling specific types of content, looking into addons and figuring out access. Regardless of which specific features I use, I always keep the audience, and their needs, in mind when selecting them.
Maintenance
Determining who will maintain things, and how, is another important aspect of planning. I’ve seen many groups setup a brilliant Confluence instance, only to let it fall apart. Keeping things running smoothly involves identifying specific page owners to manage specific content, as well as a regular schedule of reviewing how things are going. I aim to review everything at least twice a year, this helps me stay on top of evolving needs of my customers and ensure Confluence is setup to support them.
Wrap Up
The good new is that planning doesn’t have to be a heavy lift. If you only have an hour or two that can still have a huge impact on making Confluence usable and setting yourself up for success.
Want to learn more about how to setup Confluence (and other knowledge bases?) - check out my Knowledge Base Fundamentals course to get a much deeper look.
