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Arden de Raaij
Arden de Raaij

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How does your team share knowledge?

If you work in a team, how do you share knowledge? Do you have a wiki, newsletter, repository with links or something else? It would be kind of a shame when one teammate tries to roll their own timezone library while another knows a great npm package that takes care of the sameπŸ˜…

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justinctlam profile image
Justin Lam

There are several layers of knowledge sharing.

  • Are you sharing some generic knowledge that is just cool to learn?
  • Are you sharing some relevant domain knowledge related to your product?
  • Are you sharing specific minute technical details? etc...

Each type may require a different style of education.

In your specific example, "It would be kind of a shame when one teammate tries to roll their own timezone library while another knows a great npm package that takes care of the same", the best way to deal with that is for the teammate to actually talk to his coworkers. As much as people nowadays want to absorb knowledge passively, there is some responsibility on the author to make sure they are not duplicating work.

As an example, on my previous team an engineer and product manager didn't bothered to ask anyone if a calendar component was already implemented in a sister team and instead took 3 months to build their own. All that person needed to do was to send an email or just simply talk to his teammates if there was something already available. So one way of knowledge sharing is simply to ask for that knowledge.

To the answer the question generally, there's no one right way, but I've seen the following:

  • Wiki
  • OneNote
  • MD files
  • Lunch and Learns
  • Presentations
  • Email newsletters
  • Internal Stack Overflow
  • Mailing lists
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perigk profile image
Periklis Gkolias

Not exactly my team, but rather the team of a friend in another company. They have an L&D(Learning and development) slot each week where all the members are encouraged to learn hot stuff about the industry and present them to the rest.

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ardennl profile image
Arden de Raaij

Ah I like that idea a lot, thanks for sharing!

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ee profile image
temon

in my office, we have chat group (link and discussion) and we also have a class session for share what you expert on or everything that you think it's worth to share on class session.

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ardennl profile image
Arden de Raaij

Thanks for replying! The class sessions sound really nice, is that something that you've found actually to be useful? Also, is there a way that you keep track of packages that are 'company approved' so to say?

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ee profile image
temon

We have one person that manages the sharing event (included the class session). Actually, each class session has a max number of member. So, The sharing manager can keep tracking the class session syllabus, schedule, and the member.

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chrisvasqm profile image
Christian Vasquez

We use:

  • Links on chat groups.
  • Repository's .md files for documentation/guides.
  • Demos via video calls.
  • Recordings from past video calls.
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ardennl profile image
Arden de Raaij

Cheers for your answer! What do you find most useful for keeping track of what kind of packages people use, for example? And the demos via video calls, are those by external developers / companies? Thanks again!