Blogging Status

For many people in the enterprise, blogging seems like domain of larger than life experts, slackers or freaks. The key is to show them ways that blogs can be valuable in a business context.

One way is to use blog postings to let people know the status of some effort - we've installed the code and are having a problem with IP addresses, we've completed the requirements document and will have a review on Thursday, etc.

This addresses the problem of having too many meetings and in a virtual environment, this is even more so. As projects progress and more tasks are in play, program management wants to know what's going on. This can result in more meetings to get status. If team members are blogging about status, and program management is watching these, then the status information will be available.

I've found that having a common team/project blog meets this need, where anyone on the team can contribute.

This does require trust, and that trust is enhanced by systematic blogging. Also, the players need to have a good relationship, which is the responsibility of team leads to foster and grow.