LavaCon 2017 - Maturing Process Maturity

© 2017 Comtech Services, Inc. @comtechdawn #Lavacon
Maturing Process Maturity!
!
Dawn Stevens!
Comtech Services

2
We’re changing …
•  New standards – XML, DITA
•  New tools – XML editor, cCMS
•  New platforms – mobile, dynamic delivery, social media
•  New technologies – augmented reality, video
•  New responsibilities – ux design, taxonomy

3
What we often overlook in the
excitement...

4
Beyond tools and technologies
•  Organizational structure
•  Hiring and training
•  Collaboration
•  User awareness
•  Budgeting
•  Planning
•  Estimating, scheduling, and
tracking
•  Information design
•  Quality assurance
•  Change management

5
Information Process Maturity Model
•  Mature organizations continually
call into question their own
practices, developing innovations
that will increase the
effectiveness and profitability
of the company
Level 5: Optimizing
Level 4: Managed and
sustainable
Level 3: Organized and
repeatable
Level 2: Rudimentary
Level 1: Ad-hoc

6
Organizational structure
•  Does your current organizational structure
o  provide you with the power and authority to initiate this change?
o  provide you with infrastructure support to implement the change?
o  enable you to affect and motivate change?
o  position you to reach and influence everyone
who should be a part of the change?
o  include the types of roles and skill sets
required to implement the change?
o  provide the executive level support you
will need to overcome obstacles along
the way?

7
Organizational structure
• What might need changing:
o  Centralized vs decentralized approach
o  Roles and responsibilities of individual team members
o  Number or proportion of people in various roles within
the department
o  Division of responsibilities across different departments
o  Level of involvement from senior
executives

8
Hiring and training
•  How will this change affect the skills you look for in the future?
•  Are these skills readily available in the current market?
•  Is your company competitive enough to
attract people with those skills?
•  Do your job descriptions reflect new
responsibilities?
•  Can the new skills be effectively trained?
•  What type of training will you provide
to support this change?

9
Hiring and training
o  Job titles, positions, distribution
o  Job descriptions
o  Required skill sets
o  Outsourcing strategies
o  Onboarding process
o  Professional organizations and memberships
o  Workshops, webinars, conferences made available

10
Collaboration
•  Do individuals work in teams with each other currently?
•  Are individuals within your group aware of what others are doing?
•  Are individuals likely to ask for help and
receive it from their teammates?
•  Is teamwork recognized and rewarded?
•  Are information developers active members
of Agile Scrum teams?
•  Are information developer co-located with the
development teams you support?
•  Is your department aware of the activities
of other departments, and are you invited to
participate?

11
Collaboration
o  Communication mechanisms – wikis, social platforms,
project web sites
o  Team building events
o  Meeting frequency and agendas
o  Reward systems
o  “Umbrella of mercy”
o  Contact and interaction with other
departments

12
User awareness
•  Do you have direct access to users of your content?
•  Do you have feedback mechanisms to gather user impressions
and suggestions about your content?
•  Have you developed vivid user personas
that influence the way you design and
write information?
•  Are you trying to be everything to
everyone?
•  Do you meet regularly with other groups
who have direct content with users?

13
User awareness
o  User contact opportunities – interviews, observations,
social media interaction
o  Persona development
o  User feedback process and response times
o  User involvement in content creation
o  Critical skills analysis for target audience

14
Budgeting
•  Are you in control of your own budget?
•  Does your budget allow for
o  special projects?
o  training and accompanying travel?
o  consulting?
o  special, potentially more expensive, skill sets?
•  Is budgeting based on workload or headcount?
•  Do you know how much it costs to create your content?
•  What ROI have you promised for this change?
•  Are there other departments who might contribute to this change
effort?

15
Budgeting
o  Budget based on scope of work, not head count
o  Budget for innovation
§  tools
§  training
§  consultants
§  new hires
o  Allocation of budget within the
department

16
Planning
•  How are your projects planned?
•  In an Agile environment, how do you ensure user-focussed,
task-oriented content and avoid feature-driven design of
content?
•  What are your expectations for reuse?
How do information developers check
that they are not duplicating
existing content?
•  Who reviews and approves content
plans?

17
Planning
o  Amount of project planning
o  Type of project planning
o  Duration and timing of planning
o  Planning for reuse
o  Who to involve in planning

18
Estimating, scheduling, and tracking
•  Are your project estimates and schedules based on historical data and
current workloads? How might that data change with new tools?
•  Are you able to balance workload across team resources as needed?
•  Do you track on a regular basis the progress made against completion
and the time required to get there?
•  Are certain tasks in original schedules ultimately
compressed or removed?
•  Do you have risk mitigation plans in place?
•  Is documentation included in the definition of done
in Agile sprints? Is it a task within a development
story or an independent story? Is it on the same
sprint schedule or offset?

19
Estimating, scheduling, and tracking
o  Total project time baselines
o  Proportions of projects allocated for specific activities
o  What metrics are monitored
o  Agile adjustments
§  definition of done
§  user stories and tasks
§  sprint schedule

20
Information design
•  Are similar types of information structured similarly and
consistently?
•  Can the content can be effectively reused across the library?
•  Does content conform to minimalism principles and other
accepted documentation standards?
•  Can users easily locate the information they
want and need?
•  Are topics linked together in a predictable
and meaningful pattern?
•  Do you offer a media-rich information
experience?

21
Information design
o  Content structure
o  Writing standards – minimalism, readability
o  Strategies for reusability
o  Strategies to support search and ensure findability
o  Use of media and interactive content
o  Globalization strategies

22
Quality assurance
•  Are your corporate standards and guidelines apparent and
consistently enforced?
•  Do you have a dedicated editorial function?
•  Is editing a part of the developmental process as well as the
review process?
•  Are you making the maximum use of automated quality
options?
•  What percentage of post-release content
changes can be attributed to mistakes
made by the information developers?

23
Quality assurance
o  Overhaul of your corporate style guide and development
of an information model
o  The re-appearance of the developmental editor
o  Acquisition of automated quality checking tools
o  A re-evaluation of what defines quality

24
Change management
•  Is your team excited about and supportive of the changes
you are making?
•  Do stakeholders understand the reason for the change?
•  Is the adoption schedule realistic and has it been well
communicated?
•  Have you established open
lines of communication about
the change?

25
Change management
o  Who is involved in the transition
o  Communication channels and timing
o  The corporate culture and approach to change

26
Change is a process, not an event

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Questions and comments
Dawn Stevens
dawn.stevens@comtech-serv.com
@comtechdawn

LavaCon 2017 - Maturing Process Maturity

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