Lombardi Wikis - collaborative information development, with DITA XML in the mix

Slide 1: Lombardi Wikis A model for collaborative information development (with DITA XML in the mix) February 21, 2008

Slide 2: What are Lombardi Wikis?  Documentation Wiki and Community Wiki - different use cases, integrated user experience  Documentation source in DITA, output to wiki  A framework for collaborative information development 2

Slide 3: Outline  Strategies and tactics  System demo  Observations  Discussion 3

Slide 4: Strategies and tactics 4

Slide 5: Early considerations  What is the high-level vision?  How should the system work?  What processes need to be in place to support the system?  What are the key components?  Who are the key resources?  How to keep stakeholders and collaborators engaged? 5

Slide 6: Project progression  Identify business goals  Validate goals with the target users  Develop and prioritize use cases  Define the product and process requirements  Define the resources and milestones  Implement and test  Go live with pilot audience  Implement enhancements and bug fixes  Go live  Measure and maintain (iterative) 6

Slide 7: Business goals  Help customers and partners scale by providing rich user assistance  Make helpful information easier to find – fewer support calls, happier customers  Provide a user experience that inspires users to contribute to the community  Provide a way for users to network and discuss designs and best practices with experts and users like themselves  Increase the productivity of customers, partners, and employees 7

Slide 8: Problems to solve Customer pains Internal pains Documentation updates not immediately Deep knowledge exists in the product available - tied to product releases ecosystem but is difficult to tap into Capturing feedback, questions, and Reviews are time and resource intensive, discussions about content is difficult vulnerable to quality problems Lifecycle management issues – stale No view into “what’s new” information is difficult to discover No way to share “non-warranted” Promotion of new and improved content is knowledge (samples, tips and tricks) with difficult the community 8

Slide 9: Use cases  Find out what's new*  Search for specific information*  Share knowledge*  Get notified of updates*  Call out nuggets of information (e.g. rate, vote, favorites)  Find something to play with  Personalize the experience  Ask a question  Rant and/or rave  Report a problem  Talk about myself * Identified as highest priority 9

Slide 10: System demo 10

Slide 11: Documentation Wiki 11

Slide 12: Community Wiki 12

Slide 13: Space architecture Access point (hub space) Space Deliverable (= ditamap scope) 13

Slide 14: System architecture  DITA XML source in SCMS  DITA to Confluence export plugin • 100% repeatable publishing routine using Java + XSLT  Enterprise Wiki (Confluence)  Database (SQL Server 2000)  Integrations: • LDAP • SSO • Eclipse RCP and Web applications (dynamic Help content directly from the wiki) 14

Slide 15: Implementation considerations  Ditaval and conref • Poses major challenges due to unique page ID constraints • Best practice: use what the target platform provides where you can – for example, {multi-excerpt}, {include-page} m acros that extend the core engine – customize as needed.  Navigation • Build custom bits to create proper navigation (alphabetical ordering can really corrupt content usability). Add sorting m etadata to each page during export, have the engine use the m etadata to render a dynamic TOC. • Plugin conflicts across versions com plicate upgrade scenarios. Plan for upgrade scenarios, especially when custom izing plugins. Upgrade scenarios include both server upgrades and individual plugin/macro upgrades. 15

Slide 16: Conref on the wiki - reusable content 16

Slide 17: Conref on the wiki – reused content 17

Slide 18: Observations 18

Slide 19: Problems solved Before After Documentation updates not Automated and ad-hoc content immediately available updates from DITA XML source Interactions with the information Comment, rate, tag, favorite are cumbersome to conduct No view into “what’s new” Detailed comparison view with list of recent updates and version rollback No way to share “non- Contribute content, link to and warranted” knowledge with the from “warranted” content, tag community 19

Slide 20: Road map Date Milestone Major features DITA to wiki export (limited) Space architecture for docs and April 2005 Alpha community Hyperlinked TOC pages from ditamaps March 2007 Beta Dynamic TOCs from ditamaps SSO with other knowledge portals July 2007 GA Version 1 Integrated with product user interface Support for ditaval and conref Integrated search across other January 2008 GA Version 1.5 knowledge portals 20

Slide 21: Process  Info Dev responds to community updates by manually incorporating revisions into DITA source and then republishing  Info Dev replies to the originating comments to acknowledge contributions (and track change)  Info Dev helps channel knowledge from other forums to the wiki  Info Dev contributes community articles  Info Dev maintains UI definitions and system files in source control, where changes can be tracked 21

Slide 22: Engagement methods  Special content  Themed content drives  Daily engagement with audience - “ tending and mending”  Quarterly/opportunistic promo emails to users 22

Slide 23: Collaboration methods  Delineation of “ warranted” versus “ non-warranted” information • Brokered collaboration model for “warranted” information assets (Documentation Wiki) • Cohesive collaboration model for “non-warranted” information assets (Community Wiki)  “ Core contributors” versus “ trusted contributors” Reference: MIT Sloan Management Review, Fall 2007, Vol. 29: “ Breakthroughs and the ‘ Long Tail of Innovation’ ” ; L. Fleming 23

Slide 24: Promotion methods  Host Webex sessions regularly to increase adoption and get feedback  Link to the wiki from Installer (desktop shortcut, last Installer page)  Link to the wiki from the product (e.g. Help menu)  Wiki pages as dynamic Help  Wiki pages as context-sensitive Help  Reply to questions on other forums (e.g. discussion groups, email) with links to the wiki  Promo emails (to coincide with new features, new and improved content) 24

Slide 25: Wikipatterns.com  Not anti-patterns for us: • Empty Pages (use: bubble up the list of empty pages to the home page and ask people to contribute) • Registration Required (use: access is restricted to the company user registry - no registration required and no public signup available) 25

Slide 26: Thank you! Questions? Feedback? lisa.dyer@lombardi.com Blueprint it. The easiest way to get started with BPM is now available! www.lombardi.com/blueprint 26