What You Want is Knowledge

Source: Dev.to

Introduction

“What You Want” (abbreviated wyw) is more than a personal life‑hack; when written down collectively it becomes valuable knowledge. By providing a shared space where multiple people can add their wishes, you create a resource that supports learning, collaboration, and long‑term growth.

Types of “What You Want” Lists

Why Engineers Often Overlook wyw

Engineers—whether individual contributors, managers, or seniors—may dismiss wyw as another self‑improvement gimmick. Yet it offers concrete benefits:

• Clarifies priorities for projects and personal growth.
• Encourages asynchronous communication and richer discussions.
• Reveals hidden needs within the team.
• Provides practice for writing comments, creating issues, and verbalizing thoughts—skills essential for prompt engineering and soft‑skill development.

Benefits of a Shared wyw Log

A What You Want Log is a collective repository of wyw items, similar to a product backlog. Its advantages include:

• Increased asynchronous interaction among team members.
• More engaging synchronous conversations when wyw becomes a discussion topic.
• Serendipitous discovery of ideas and needs that might otherwise stay hidden.
• Practice for junior engineers, newcomers, and seniors who need to improve written communication.
• A foundation for knowledge generation, as the aggregated wishes reflect diverse personalities, needs, and advice.

Tools and Implementation

Scrapbox / Cosense

• Cosense is a Japanese simultaneous‑editing wiki that scales to thousands of pages without requiring Slack.
• Create a wyw workspace for all members, allowing free‑form writing, page linking, and embedding of images or videos.
• Example workspace: /wanna (a Japanese community where members actively share wyw).

GitHub Issues

• Set up a repository dedicated to wyw.
• Use one issue per wyw item.
• Keep labeling and templating minimal—no need for strict management or duplicate removal.

Miro Board

• Build a wyw board with sticky notes.
• Add new wyw items as they appear while reviewing others’ notes—an asynchronous brainstorming session.
• Embrace clutter; duplicates and messiness are signs of active participation.

Integration Ideas

• Use APIs to build a Reader that randomly displays wyw entries.
• Push weekly wyw summaries to a Slack channel for broader visibility.

Practical Tips for Managing wyw

1. Keep writing casual – avoid heavy processes or strict templates.
2. Do not over‑manage – duplicate entries are fine; no need for dedicated maintainers.
3. Focus on contribution – the value lies in the accumulation of diverse wishes, not in perfect organization.
4. Leverage the data – feed the collected wyw into generative AI for dialogue, analysis, or personalized recommendations.

Conclusion

When multiple people contribute their “What You Want” items, the resulting log transforms into a knowledge base enriched by individual perspectives and collective insight. By adopting simple tools and a low‑maintenance approach, teams can foster better communication, uncover hidden needs, and create a living resource that supports both personal and professional growth.