Presentation describes a case study on how to implement structured writing and content management. It discusses what went right, wrong, and metrics used to measure success.

1. Implementing Structured Writing and
Content Management Globally
Pam Noreault
Sr. User Experience Content Specialist
ACI Worldwide
@pnoreault@LavaCon

2. Contact me – conversation
• 20+ years experience in user assistance,
content, and training
• pamela.noreault@aciworldwide.com
• pamnoreault@gmail.com
• pnoreault - Twitter
• Pam Noreault - LinkedIn
@pnoreault@LavaCon

3. Here’s the story
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Case study on a global DITA implementation
Project goals
How goals were achieved
What went right and wrong
How we fixed what we screwed up and what we left
screwed up
Project outcome and the lessons learned
Project timeline
Cost savings/calculations
Metrics used to track what we did

4. Big shock!
Horrors!

5. Set the stage
● Four sites: UK, Germany, USA, and Canada.
● Seven languages and with an in-house translation team
of 13.
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English
German
Italian
French
Spanish
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
● Inventory of ~350 documents in FrameMaker, Word,
Help and Manual, RoboHelp (basic hell)

6. Actors in the play
• Four Doc Managers - one per site
• One Translation Manager - UK
• Two Information Architects - US and UK
• 20 Technical Writers
• 12 Translators
Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

7. Business goals
• Reduce documentation and translation
costs
• Improve time to market
• Improve content consistency

8. Project goals
Main Goals
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Get rid of
● Manual translation processes
● Software and authoring silos
● Eliminate the focus on layout
Introduce resource sharing across sites
Focus on quality content
Team Goals
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Convert doc to DITA
Move content storage to a central repository
Implement DITA OT as the publishing engine for PDF and Help

9. Business goals reached how?
• Translation costs slashed
• Shaved months off releases
(Waterfall SDLC)
• Content reuse helped consistency

10. What made the difference?
● Translation eliminated layout activities
● Translation eliminated converting content to XML prior
to translating it and importing it back to source software
● Common software tools
● Resource sharing across sites
● Quality content
● Content converted to DITA (manually – shoot me!)
● Central repository implemented
● DITA OT used for PDF and Help for all languages

11. What went right
1. Doc team completed job in spite of tiny budget,
no time, and little expertise
2. Translation team won big
3. Met the biz goals and project goals

12. What went wrong
• No topic model caused element tagging horrors
• No ‘sandbox’ DITA OT so stuff broke often
• No concrete content reuse strategy so reuse
horrors
• Variable use for product names was a translation
nightmare

13. Lessons learned
● Get dirty and ask for help
● Topic model – do one (keep it simple)
● Content reuse - avoid spaghetti linking and use
common folders
● Sandbox – have one
● Translation impact – think it over with variables
● PDF customizations - Do NOT change the DITA OT files
directly

14. Project timeline
• Tool selection - 3 months
• DITA OT for PDF - 6 months
• DITA OT for web help - 3 months
• Content conversion - 6-8 months
• Pilot project - 6 months
• All projects - 12 months

15. Cost savings (1 of 5)
Reduced project cost by 5%
• Accurate doc estimates = Accurate translation estimates
• Reduced word count
• Reuse of content
• Reduced the number of drops for translation
• Implemented translation guidelines – Lowercase text in
headings except for first word, keyword reuse, XML
source

16. Cost savings (2 of 5)
Cut two weeks off time to market for releases
•Stopped doing layout

17. Cost savings (3 of 5)
Cut doco project costs by 30%
•Reduced English word count
•Eliminated layout
•Combined docs to avoid redundancy
•Content reuse

18. Cost savings (4 of 5)
Cut translation costs by 50%
• Reduced word count
• Eliminated layout - Translation was doing layout
on docs using Adobe InDesign
• 50% of a project doing translation and 50%
doing layout
• Content reuse

19. Cost savings (5 of 5)
Translation prep saved $24k per project
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Saved 5 days of work for each translator
Content reuse
Keyword reuse
Lowercase headings
Reduced English word count
Avoided gratuitous screen shots
Common glossary terms
12 Translators @ $50 per hr - $50x40 hrs per wk + $2,000 per wk
saved
$2,000 x 12 translators = $24,000 per project

20. Metrics – do a BASELINE
• Determine costs - before and after DITA
• Measure time - before and after DITA
• Companies push for FTE reduction with process
savings.
• Put money back into other projects.

21. Continue the conversation
Pam Noreault
pamela.noreault@aciworldwide.com
pamnoreault@gmail.com
Twitter: pnoreault
LinkedIn: Pam Noreault