The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

The work-reflection-learning cycle in SE student projects: Use of collaboration tools
provide a certain image of their project (internally and externally), as a coordination
mechanism, and as shared workspace.
5.5 P5: Using Project Wiki History to Reflect on the Project
Process
Author: Krogstie, Birgit
Published in: Proceedings of the 42nd Hawaii International Conference on System
Sciences (HICSS) 2009
In this paper, we address the potential of project wikis to support reflection on the project process
through participants’ reconstruction of the project trajectory. Drawing on a case study of software
engineering project work, we illustrate how information on project history can be found in a project wiki
and may be used to support recall of and reflection on the process. We discuss implications for
postmortem project reviews by considering how the utilization of project wikis could addresses some
challenges to successful reviews. We also propose extended wiki functionality that can be used to make a
more selective review of project history based on user-tagged contents.
The research presented in P5 was initiated based on findings from the research on dayto-day
use of project wikis in the capstone projects. In our interviews of project team
members about their use of project wikis, the wikis themselves were examined as an aid
to the interview. It turned out that recall and reflection was effectively aided by the
browsing of wiki contents. As a consequence I decided to focus not only on day-to-day
use of the wikis in the projects, but investigate the potential of the wikis to be used
retrospectively to aid recall of and reflection on the process.
P5 demonstrates that given the current use of wikis as lightweight project management
tools, there is a potential to utilize the historical information in the wikis for purposes of
recalling and reflecting on important aspects of the project process. Wiki contents (e.g.
the various revisions of the project wiki main page) can be chronologically traversed in
a „tour‟ of the project. By examining page contents and following hyper-links, the user
can inspect details related to the process and some of the project artifacts. The
combination of chronological traversal and inspection of details aids recall and
reflection.
P5 also identifies a potential for improvement of project wikis with the aim of providing
better support for retrospective reflection. More focused navigation of historical data
would be possible if the wiki allowed chronological browsing of the wiki pages
considered most relevant to retrospective reflection. What is relevant in this respect will
vary between projects and individual team members. Importantly, it should be possible
to chronologically browse relevant page revisions (e.g. of the main page, showing the
development of the team‟s frequently updated to do-list). The solution to this challenge
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