In the Operations Management course I just finished, a group project accounted for a third of the grade. My group was given the topic “Toyota Production System / Lean Manufacturing”. I suggested to the group that we use a Wiki to collaborate on the project.

I installed MediaWiki (the same one used by Wikipedia) on my site and off we were. The wiki did not necessarily determine the outcome of the project(which was a success), but it certainly helped streamline the process. In fact, I think I found a new application for Lean principals – Lean Group Project Collaboration!

You can find the results here: OMIS505 Group Project Wiki

Upsides of Wiki Collaboration
-mobile, accessible repository for keeping research (links and notes)
-gives you the ability to instantly see the latest version of your project (or the outline in our case)
-you can review what changes were made when and by whom, which introduces some accountability into the project

Downsides of Wiki Collaboration
-no mechanism for uploading files (like a powerpoint presentation)

In case you are interested, the final version of our powerpoint is available here:
Group Project Presentation (5MB)