Confluence's biggest learning curve is...

[Jena Slezak]

Hello, Confluence peeps!  Thanks for all your insights the other week around why you started using Confluence. There's so many different ways teams use Confluence and it's so cool to hear it straight from you! But it piqued my curiosity...

What was the biggest learning curve when starting with Confluence? 

 Where did you get stuck? Where do your teams get stuck?

Sound of in the comments below!  

[Amanda Barber]

For me, my biggest issue (even still) is how best to organize and label documents to ensure they are regularly accessed, used and maintained. It feels like that alone could be a full time job. :-D 

[Jena Slezak]

@Amanda Barber totally! Especially when you have a growing org, that can get out of control. Does that also include how to organize pages in the page hierarchy? Or just labels?

[Amanda Barber]

The page hierarchy seems to work mostly okay for us and I love the child display macro for making a "home" page in the hierarchies. I think I'd like to grow my knowledge around and use of labels to help folks find information across spaces.

[Jena Slezak]

I also ❤️ the child display macro! Thanks for the feedback @Amanda Barber !

[Dave Menconi]

I would add to that the real had part is walking up on a space (or collection of spaces) with dozens (hundreds?) of pages, inconsistent or non-existent labels, and an incomprehensive organizational system. 

It's hard to know where to start! Especially the first time!

[Sue Wilson]

My biggest learning curve was getting started.  There are so many ways to use Confluence and even more ways to set up spaces, hierarchies, etc.  I tried several different ideas....TOC, lozenges, site map.  I finally landed on creating a space for each team and applying lozenges to the Company home page.  Being a software company, our users appreciated the visual queues over reading and searching for what they needed to find in a tool they were leery to use.  For the teams, the notion of creating a page vs word doc was where they got stuck.  It was so convenient to open word and email their docs to other team members as they had done for at least a decade.  The struggle to convert these 'old school' users to creating pages was real!  So, I imported sample docs into pages to show them how easy it was.  Then, I created templates from these pages so they didn't even have to think about sections in the document or how to get started creating a page.  They could easily create from templates and, after some trial & error, began using Confluence for EVERYTHING!!!  Once they did, they came up with a lot of good questions, feature requests, and, of course, content to really help build up our site!  

[Jena Slezak]

What did you want to use Confluence for when you got started @swilson ? There are definitely a lot of ways to use it! But I hear ya, some guidance/best practices sound like they would've been helpful!

Super good idea to create templates for the teams! It can definitely be a learning curve for the Word users at first. I'm so glad your teams caught on!! What do you think really sold them on using Confluence? 

[Sue Wilson]

@Jena Slezak the company wanted to use it as their primary/only document repository since most everything was on people's local machines, which helped nobody.  After reviewing what Confluence was capable of (no training, a lot of googling), I was leery of simply using it to upload documents.  So, with that thought in mind, I went to work.  Google searches & Atlassian documentation really helped me ramp up to the task.

What I think sold them was the look & feel when I had my initial design complete and the templates!  They would simply use the last document they created, delete the old data & add the new, then save it as a different name.  This was prone to errors quite often.  Using the templates gave them the structure already in place and allowed them to create new every time.  Once they got the hang of it, I worked on an 'archive' section to hold old documents without having to recreate each & every one just to have them in our new central location.  I made sure all the attachments had the same label I added to the template, so searching would bring old and new together.  Even the oldest & latest adopters had no excuse left for not converting to Confluence.  ;-)

[Andy Gladstone]

Adoption through contribution. Many of our users are just too afraid to contribute, they only consume. Getting them to become contributors and collaborators on pages and in spaces that are relevant to their roles and areas of expertise is the biggest hurdle we face. 

Many users feel like they need their pages to be perfect UX/UI, and getting them just to commit finger to keyboard (the modern pen to paper) and contribute their knowledge - and convincing them it does not need to be perfect - is the challenge that we are constantly experiencing.

[Hua Soon SIM _Akeles_]

Yes, I agree the best way to learn is to get the hands dirty.

We get new team members onboard faster by making it necessary to write Confluence pages as part of their work (e.g. Meeting Notes, Release Notes, Developer Notes).

Of course we also reduce the learning curve by 

• quick starter guide to Confluence like macros, keyboard shortcuts
• providing a brief writing guide
• designing an easy to navigate and consistent space structure (using ScriptRunner for Confluence copy space script)
• create new pages using templates and create from template macro
• facilitating contextualised searching by placing search macros at suitable locations (index/parent pages)

Collaborative editing helps a lot by letting them to write their first line 😇

Once people realise the value of Confluence, they will have the incentive to learn more tricks.

[Hua Soon SIM _Akeles_]

I missed out 1 more point.

Provide plenty of examples. People learn by seeing and copying.
That's how I learnt Excel formulas too.  

[Dave Menconi]

And programming, cooking, gardening, etc. :-)

[Annette Herzog-Lang]

1. Don't be afraid, just get started.

2. Make sure that users get some training (makes them feel more comfortable, and helps to establish some standards in the use).

3. Structure your content well. 

4. Make sure that for each area there's someone to administer content.

[Keith Sottung]

I agree with all the comments.... but in my org... ugh the hardest part is adoption and the constant back lash from others assuming what it can't do.  Everyone in my org claims to know Agile but consistently gravitate to google sheet to start their documentation journey... but in the end, they hit a wall.  User say to me Confluence takes too long.... but I know this comes from the initial  capture of data / requirements... but not the long haul of collaboration and approval of the information.  When you factor in the whole life cycle, Confluence comes out ahead!!  (Sorry, this might have been more of a Vent... then positive contribution. :-)  Please let's keep this a secret among ourselves.  Hee hee  bye