A presentation delivered on April 20, 2015 in Chicago at the annual Content Management Strategies / DITA North America conference. It presents tactics and tools for presenting DITA, and its business benefits, to executive management.
2. What does Management
care about, really?
What do they value?
What do they notice?
What gets them excited?
DITA must be positioned
with the answers to these
questions in mind
1. Utility
2. Agility
3. Productivity
4. Quality
5. Manageability
Looking at DITA from the Perspective of Management
Think
about:
4. What Matters to Management?
In a nutshell:
Immediate positive contribution
towards key performance goals
In truth, it is rare for management
to notice anything else
Helping people (customers) to
perform intended tasks
• Find & purchase a product
• Use & recommend a product
• Maintain & update a product
• Upgrade & extend a product
Quickly & efficiently
Utility: The first thing Content must do – Be Useful!
5. Utility: Content as a (Customer) Service
DITA
Content
Business
Proposals
Sales
Collateral
& Case
Studies
Marketing
Docs &
Knowledge
Base Articles
Support
eLearning
Courses
& Tests
Training
KeyExternalStakeholderTouchPoints
7. The Utility of Content
demands Content Agility
Content can be delivered
when, where, & how it is needed
• All Channels simultaneously
• Dynamically adapted to be useful
in all channels & across all channels
DITA content can be
• Easily grouped into new Outputs
• Automatically published into all
necessary formats
DITA provides this Agility with an
open & adaptable approach
Agility: How Content can be useful in all situations
8. Case Study
Software company
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
had blocked all
DITA initiatives
Operational issues traced to
weak communications
The Pitch
20 minute window with COO
A “no-jargon” zone
Modernization unavoidable
Leveraging a best practice
initiated by IBM was OK
Agility: Outmaneuver Management Resistance
10. Productivity is a function of:
Maximizing returns
while
Minimizing costs
DITA provides key “levers”
Optimizes Reuse
• Minimizes localization costs
• Minimizes update costs
Emphasizes Automation
• Minimizes publishing costs
Leverages shared community
investments & learning
• Minimizes implementation costs
Productivity: Maximizing the Return on Content Assets
11. Productivity improvements
are “table stakes”
Large enterprises have set
evaluation & approval rules
Individual management
stakeholders will be interested
in improvements that help them
Important Caveat
Organizations are much less
rational than they pretend
Executives need to become
excited to be genuinely useful
Productivity: Return on Content (RoC)
13. Quality has been a widely
used justification for DITA
Integration of Outputs with all
relevant data sources is great
Unfortunately, it rarely grabs or
holds management attention
Quality minimizes key risks
• Non-compliance
• Threats to user safety
• Customer dissatisfaction
• Damage to brand image
All important
but all are “contingent liabilities”
as opposed to immediate problems
Quality: Perfecting Outputs & Avoiding Problems
Nana Gollner
Prima Ballerina
14. Quality is the long game
Hard work & attention to detail
Proves itself in performance
Starts small & builds
… like DITA
Quality: Nana Gollner and DITA
Nana Gollner -
the little girl with
polio who became
one of the great
dancers of the
20th Century
16. Economy of effort & the
integration of investments
This does make sense to
better managers
Important pieces
Measurability
Asset control & protection
Really important pieces
Alignment with market
Alignment with community
Alignment of business activities
Alignment of investments
Alignment of user experiences
Manageability: Economy of Effort, Integration, Alignment
17. Integrate or Outsource
The secret fact of organizational life
All content investments must
Integrate data sources in a way that
makes them useful and compelling
Integrate communication activities that
span & connect different business units
Deliver content assets that can be reused
across different business activities
Deliver improvements to how external
stakeholders achieve their goals
Management: Integrated Content Management
19. Demonstrate what is possible
If Utility is a hot button,
you need to push it
Show how information can be made
• Accessible in many formats
• Easily findable & usable
• Precisely targeted to specific needs
• Let’s say it….sexy
This really shows how agility drives utility
Sooth Management Concerns
• DITA is an industry movement
• Lowest cost way to achieve goals
• Lowest risk way to modernize tools
• DITA helps to integrate content activities
Sell DITA by Demonstrating Utility
21. A Public Domain Collection of
DITA instances that can be:
Used to demonstrate the key
benefits of DITA to Management
• Functionally realistic
• Based on real content sources
• Exhibits real-world details
• Supports realistic scenarios
• Realism is critically important
when engaging management
• They must see how DITA can
tangibly improve things today
Adapted to meet Demo needs
Collectively enhanced
Showtime: A DITA Demonstration Data Set
22. Showtime: Integrated Content Services
Scenario:
Thunderbird
Content delivery
>> PDF
>> ePub
>> WebHelp
>> MobileHelp
>> MS Word
23. Thunderbird DITA Demonstration Content
A functionally realistic
set of demonstration
DITA instances
Thunderbird Stormcluster
software documentation
24. Showtime: DITA Sales Pitch
Scenario:
Alfresco
DITA Pitch
>> PDF
>> ePub
>> WebHelp
>> MobileHelp
>> MS Word
25. Alfresco DITA Demonstration Scenario
Rapid update of the collection
to reflect an alternative identity
Images and product
name variables adapted
to tailor the demo to a
given organization.
26. Position DITA against the key
Management Perspectives
Utility
Agility
Productivity
Quality
Manageability
All of these are important
but emphasis today falls on:
Utility: Content as a Service
Agility: Outmaneuver obstacles
Manageability: content integration
Realistic Demo Content Helps!
DITA: What’s it good for?