Groupware, Information Transparency & Team Building

The development team I work with is divided between two states. We make a valiant effort at times to feel like one team but we rarely achieve that well oiled machine feel. A couple of years ago we tried to cobble together an information sharing network (maven generated site with added forum, blog\announcement page and standards documentation). This got us absolutely nowhere as those most familiar with information and use these sites in the open-source world were our only users while those we were trying to help didn't ever really participate. We always fell back to email and IM with people missing out on all the real information sharing in the hallways.

We are charging back into this world once again. I hope this isn't another of our build the tools and people will come exercises. After doing some research we have decided to go with Drupal, a full CMS implementation. Our goal is that involving others beyond the engineers will help integrate this into our daily lives a bit better. At the very least it has given me a reason to play with PHP in the context of a real goal - though I would have preferred to play with Ruby and ROR (but as the new kids on the block there isn't a CMS that comes close to the PHP variety).

I hope this works. Lack of communication is one of the key reason we struggle producing software. Maybe something to do with the lack of requirements too - but that leaves tons of room for "creativity". If it doesn't work - I say we make the other office move to Dallas.