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JoAnn Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director
www.infomanagementcenter.com
Settling on Mature Processes
We've been following Dr. Q as she works with
information-development managers building more mature
organizations. Checko Software, at level 2, was making
considerable progress toward restructuring. Sonoita
Technologies spent 3 years working out effective processes
and practices. It was quite a struggle at times,
particularly when Don Blue, publications manager, faced a
potential revolt from some of the writers who preferred
working on their own. In a few cases (a very few,
fortunately), the staff members decided to move on.
Since the first of the year, Don has felt his staff has
"made it."
- They completed their first comprehensive user study. They
discovered, to everyone's surprise, that the first-level
technicians at their telecom customers were not given the
documentation from Sonoita. Instead, they received
on-the-job training and a field notebook of the procedures
they needed to follow.
- They had succeeded in developing common standards with
their sister organization on the east coast. Agreeing on
standards had been difficult because both groups thought
their way of doing things was best. Finally, they were
able to reach a compromise that seemed the best of both.
- The new process standard was still proving to be a
challenge. Too many staff writers still felt it was easier
to dive into a new project rather than developing a
content plan and estimating project hours. The project
management training planned for next month should at least
ensure that everyone was using the same vocabulary for the
planning activities.
Despite the clear progress they had made, Don was alert to
the possibility of backsliding. Until they all had
experience living in a more mature business environment,
they would struggle with change. Don hoped that his recent
promotion to Director of Technical Publications signaled
senior management's support for their efforts.
Leading a Level 3 Organization Toward a Content-Management Solution
A small team representing both of Sonoita's technical
publications teams (east and west coast) has begun to
investigate content management. Linda Rubioto had attended
the Content Management Strategies conference in 2003 and was
excited about everything she'd learned. She had assembled a
team interested in knowing more and leading a possible
implementation project. The team members are working on
several issues:
- understanding the requirements of their customers for
specific content, especially the planning and surveillance
engineers they had interviewed and observed during the
site studies
- relating the customer needs for information to a set of
clearly defined information types
- standardizing the information types so that they contained
a standard set of content units
Once they had defined the information types and related them
to customer needs, they would have the rudiments of their
Information Model.
Don has invited Dr. Q to assist with their
content-management planning. Dr. Q decides to host a
stakeholders meeting. They have invited representatives of
other departments, including
- Training
- Customer Support
- Marketing and Communications
- Contracts and Proposals
Each of the stakeholders may prove to be interested in
joining the content-management initiative and supporting the
investment in hardware and software. Without their
contributions, technical publications would not be able to
support the full cost. If other departments participate in
the analysis, they will each strengthen the business case
needed to obtain approval and funding from the Sonoita board
of directors.
Dr. Q encourages the stakeholders to create a vision of how
they could work together to develop modules of information
and contribute them to the customers. They envision what the
new information-development environment would look like if
they are successful in reaching their goals.
Building a Business Case
Linda's team takes responsibility for building the business
case. They need to develop evidence of the business goals
that will be supported by content management. They must also
analyze the benefits to the company and its customers and
balance the benefits against the costs of the system and its
implementation. Dr. Q points out that costs will include
- software licenses for a database and the
content-management system
- hardware in the form of servers and other infrastructure
to support the implementation
- system integration to make all the pieces of software work
together and to build those custom pieces not available
out-of-the-box
- training for the staff in new authoring tools, as well as
the repository
- additional staff to support the content-management system
- development of a comprehensive information model
- scheduling of activities and monitoring progress
Don recognizes that the project is not going to happen over
night. He wants to plan on 12 to 18 months for the planning
and implementation. He has the regular work of the
department to manage at the same time, but with the help of
Dr. Q and her staff, they are able to plan a reasonable
level of involvement for the team.
Starting Small
Don and Linda both recognize the importance of starting
small with a well-defined pilot project. They'll need to
keep all the stakeholders at bay for a while once the pilot
begins. Bringing in all of the other departments will make
the initial project far too complex to succeed.
They know that many changes in organization and process are
ahead. It isn't enough to buy a product; an organization has
to make changes in the way it handles its work. For the
first project, they should start with a small set of
previously well-structured information and work through the
entire process. Developing baseline measurements will also
be important for them so that they have specific points of
comparison with the new system in place.
If you've found yourself putting in place a Level 3:
Organized and Repeatable organization, please send your
stories to me at
.
I'll assemble them into a feedback to this article.
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