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JoAnn Hackos, PhD
CIDM Director
www.infomanagementcenter.com
Going Beyond the Ordinary
"Does a Level 5 of process maturity exist in the
information-development world?" wondered Dr. Q. The Software
Engineering Institute, from time to time, reports on a Level
5 organization, based on their analysis of software
development. Most often, however, Level 5 activities are
confined to particular projects that are run exceptionally
well. Whole organizations that operate at Level 5 are few
and far between.
Dr. Q has been concerned about the apparent lack of Level 5
information development. She helped ODS define their Level 4
processes earlier in the year and has watched them began a
transformation to a greater focus on customers. However,
Level 5 organizations would be in the thick of customer
studies, relying on customer input to guide innovation. In
these tough economic times, Dr. Q hoped that a Level 5
organization might emerge in a leadership position.
A favorite Level 5 candidate a few years ago had seen its
role dissolve in the face of layoffs, budget cuts, and the
somewhat reluctant retirement of their inspirational leader.
Under better conditions, this leader had surpassed almost
every other group she worked with. They were recognized for
their expertise in the user experience at the highest level
of management. Their senior manager held a respected
position in the senior leadership group. He had gained for
his team a significant role not only in innovating in
publications and training but also in assuming
responsibility for the design of user-friendly software
interfaces for the products.
Unfortunately, as their industry lost economic ground, the
underpinnings of this department's support were weakened.
Even after winning an award of excellence from the
corporation at large, they could not withstand the pressures
to retreat.
Defining an Optimizing Organization
In the absence of a clear role model for Level 5 of the
Information Process Maturity Model (IPMM), Dr. Q felt it
necessary to create a comprehensive picture of an optimizing
organization. She was acutely aware of Clayton M.
Christensen's management standard, The Innovator's Dilemma
(Harvard Business 1997). In it, Christensen argues that
older companies in the high-tech industry are likely to be
challenged by the innovations of newcomers. The newcomers
are able to react more quickly and are hungry enough to take
chances on new ideas.
Many of the organizations in the Center for
Information-Development Management were part of mainstream
high-tech companies. In fact, most of the publications
managers running these organizations had been in the field
for 20 to 25 years. They had a lot of experience in putting
excellent processes in place and were successful in
introducing innovations. However, they also experienced
significant internal pressure to cut costs. They were often
able to invest in content-management systems (CMS) to save
costs but found themselves stymied when they tried to change
the way information was delivered to customers.
These observations drove Dr. Q to outline the requirements
for design and development that might characterize a Level 5
information-development organization.
Characteristics of a Level 5 Organization
In discovering a Level 5 organization, an astute observer
might be surprised by its external similarities to a Level
1: Ad-hoc organization—everyone appears to be acting
independently, but their independent behaviors have a
context:
- Technical communicators in a Level 5 organization are
self-actualizing. Although they work closely together on
information development, each team member is charged with
the responsibility for developing content that is most
useful to customers.
- Communicators take personal responsibility for
understanding their customers' needs. They are involved in
user groups, call on customers regularly for insights into
requirements, and have even begun to look at the customers
of their customers for new ideas.
- Communicators are accustomed to following standards
because they know intimately how important standards are,
not only in making their own jobs easier by taking time
out of mundane processes, but also by invoking consistency
of presentation that reassures readers that they have
found what they are looking for.
No one in a Level 5 organization needs prodding to follow
templates or maintain best practices in the
information-development life cycle. They know that a lot of
hard work has gone into designing effective information
standards and that the best practices the department has
instituted actually save everyone from boring work. In fact,
Dr. Q knows that one of the hallmarks of a Level 5
organization is the enthusiasm of the staff for best
practices and new ideas and the esteem with which they are
held by the rest of the organization.
Dr. Q's vision of a Level 5 organization centers on a
customer focus around innovation. Rather than be satisfied
at following industry trends in areas like electronic
delivery, content management, and minimalist design, a Level
5 organization would learn lessons about information
development directly from its customers.
"I'd like to see technical communicators on the front line
with the customers," Dr. Q explained. "It's too easy to
take direction about customers from marketing, sales, or
even engineering. But these organizations don't pay much
attention to how customers use information to learn and
maintain products." As a result, she advocates several new
roles:
- Never write an installation manual in the office. Send
writers out with engineers on the first few installations
of a new product. Have them watch what happens and take
lots of notes. After the installations, make sure the
writer works with engineering, production, and maintenance
to learn how the problems will be solved in the next
installation. As the problems are solved and best
practices are worked out, the installation procedures will
emerge.
- Get writers direct lines to key customers. These customers
are interested in calling when they run into usability
problems or are confused by instructions. Rather than be
frustrated by a lack of detailed knowledge of the
documentation in customer support, these privileged few
can directly call a writer who will find a solution.
Together, the customer and the writer reinvent the
instructions so that they actually work.
- Organize an advisory council of customers interested
enough in documentation that they'll spend time reviewing
ideas and giving advice. Use advisory council members as
entry points into customer site visits. Use site visits to
conduct analyses of customer goals and tasks that will
become a basis for modular content.
Spending time with customers is recognized as a core
activity in a Level 5 organization, not something you do
only after everything else is done first (which usually
means never). What role, then, does content management play
in a customer-focused organization? Doesn't the pursuit of
continuous innovation preclude the use of technologies that
tend to reinforce standards? Aren't standards stultifying?
How can an organization be innovative when everything has to
be written in the same way?
A Level 5 Content-Management Solution
Like the Level 4 group at ODS, described in the Level 4
article last month, a Level 5 organization has a strong
content-management solution in place. Standard templates
promote modular content development. Library services like
check in/check out, version control, and security assure
standard practices. An information model, based on
comprehensive metadata, facilities accessibility to
information by writers and customers alike. Modular content
is published in collections that are customized for
particular customer characteristics (geographies, industry
specialties, job roles, and so on). Modular content
published on portal-like Web sites enable individual users
to find the specific modules they need to answer questions,
pursue troubleshooting solutions, and support cross-product
innovations.
In a Level 5 organization, content management is simply part
of the infrastructure, a little like email. Once you have
it, you can't figure out how you existed without it.
What is the role of innovation and its relationship to
content management? A sound content-management solution must
be able to accommodate the special needs of a highly
innovative organization:
- A Level 5 content-management solution needs to be
developed with flexibility in mind.
- Information designers must be able to update existing
information types and create new ones in response to
customer needs.
- Metadata needs to be designed to accommodate the needs of
users rather than only accommodating the needs of
information developers. With dynamic metadata, information
can be directed to specific user needs through search
(pull) and updating (push).
- A solution must have the capacity to grow with expanding
needs. In a Level 5 organization, more opportunities are
quickly uncovered to manage information creatively for the
benefit of customers.
If you believe you're in a Level 5: Optimizing organization,
we want to hear from you now. We want to study Level 5
organizations to get a better idea of how they work. Please
send me an email at
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