|
JoAnn Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director
www.infomanagementcenter.com
Gert Kindergarten, marketing director at Hyperactive
Software, has just returned from the KMWorld conference. He
attended two sessions espousing the advantages of moving
documents into a content-management system and using XML
markup to enable reuse1 and repurposing2. He announces to
his staff that the company needs to "get into" content
management right away for all its marketing and customer
documents, especially the product manuals. His senior writer
suggests calling in a consulting team to help.
At the first meeting with Gert and members of the marketing
team, Dr. Q asks
- Who creates the marketing and customer documents today?
- What process is used to create, review, approve, and publish these documents?
Gert and Georgina, the lone technical writer, explain that
many people in the company create the documents. Three
research and development (R&D) teams write their own product
specifications and a few of the engineers and programmers
put together the user manuals for the products. The field
installation and maintenance team in customer support
creates install guides and maintenance manuals that go to
some customers. Customer services, the phone team, develops
FAQs for the company's Web site and creates ad-hoc documents
that they send to customers in response to queries.
In brief, documents are created everywhere by everyone. They
each develop the documents any way they like, with no common
look and feel. Company officials have vehemently opposed
hiring technical communicators for the R&D teams. They feel
that the engineers know the products best and should be able
to write about them. Marketing materials are created
independently by many different marketing staff and even by
executives who regularly post announcements to the company
intranet and Internet sites.
When it comes to publishing the final versions in print and
on CD-ROM, once again, staff members use a wide variety of
processes, each developed and implemented independently.
They use several different printers and generally burn their
own CDs and ship them to the fulfillment house to be
included with the product CDs.
In the Information Process Maturity Model (IPMM),
Hyperactive Software is a Level 0: Oblivious. In an
oblivious organization, management does not yet recognize
the need for standard publications. We generally don't learn
about oblivious organizations, however, until they hire
their first technical writer. That writer has the inaugural
view of the mess the documents are in and is often charged
with trying to do something about it.
Despite the marketing director's interest in content
management, Hyperactive Software is not yet ready for prime
time. They need first to pursue several important and
potentially difficult steps toward standardization before
content management makes sense.
- Review who creates documents and what documents they are creating (an
inventory of existing materials).
- Understand the processes being used throughout each document-development
life cycle.
- Query customers, both internal and external, about the successes and
failures of the current documentation set.
- Create a standard set of documents related to the products being
delivered and the users' needs for information. For example, you might have
installation, standard, and end-user standard documents.
- Adopt a standard document design that takes into account relevant
differences among the standard document types.
- Create a template for each document type with common style names across
the template set.
- Train staff members on using the standard.
- Institute a quality check process (run by the lone technical writer) to
ensure that the outgoing documents follow the standard design and template.
Rest assured, these steps will not be easy to pursue.
Dealing with an essentially ad-hoc organization is always
difficult. In an oblivious organization (not yet ad-hoc),
people don't see the point of standardization. They value
their independence in creating anything they want, rather
than the need to deliver a common look and feel in the
documents going to customers. Impressing everyone about the
need for standardization is especially difficult when no
experienced technical communicators are part of the picture.
Amateur writers often have no interest in standards or
patience with process. Because document development is not
part of their regular job description, it's low on their
personal priority lists.
Even if you are working with experienced technical
communicators (more on Level 1: Ad-hoc organizations in the
next installment of the e-newsletter), you are likely to
encounter resistance from staff who have long been
independent. We all know, of course, that even under the
best of circumstances, communicators find it difficult to
compromise on style preferences. Everyone thinks his or her
way is best.
Quite clearly, an oblivious organization is not ready for
content management. We find that if they invest in a
content-management system, they will use it as an expensive
file server with version control. Version control alone
provides little calculable return on investment. The only
path available to an oblivious organization wanting to take
advantage of content management and reuse is through
standardization.
Perhaps the best means of achieving some success is to
ensure the support of a champion in senior management.
Georgina might be able to persuade Gert to become such a
champion, but his position in marketing will likely preclude
influence over R&D. Georgina needs to find a champion among
the executives high enough in the company to influence all
or most of the teams, such as R&D, services, and support.
Champions among senior management are most likely to emerge
in response to customer pain. Customers unhappy with the
current confused state of affairs are bound to be vocal
about their problems. Georgina needs to ferret out the
complaints and bring them to the attention of the right
people. Gert in marketing may be that person, at least as a
starting point.
Oblivious organizations are on the slow path toward
content-management solutions. I've found that it often takes
two years to move an organization one level in the IPMM.
Georgina has her work cut out for her; she'll need plenty of
stamina to survive two years of oblivion. Fortunately, just
hiring her is a step in the direction of Level 1.
If you've found yourself the first communicator in a Level 0
organization, please send your stories to me at
.
I'll assemble the stories into a feedback to this article.
1 Reuse refers to the process of using chunks of content
in more than one context (or document).
2 Repurposing refers to delivery of the same information
in more than one medium (print, HTML, help, and so on).
|
