Superheros and a Leprechaun, with Flare: A case study in breaking down silos

Slide 1: Superheros and a leprechaun, S W with Flare: A case study U in breaking down silos L

Slide 2: Key Pointes • Moving documentation from RoboHelp to Flare • Key: Buy-in and cooperation from the team • The process for how we made the transition

Slide 3: Your questions Please let me know if you have any questions. My contact info will be at the end. The slide info will be at the end.

Slide 4: Who I Am • Usability Consultant • Self-employed • Company is Key Pointe Usability Consulting. • Started as tech writer and moved into usability

Slide 5: Who Is Meridian • Software Company based in California with an office here in Vancouver • Makes Construction Project Management Software

Slide 6: How I came upon the job is a long story, but I’ll make it short.

Slide 7: Joe, Irish, Brian, Doc manager L CTO P Viktor, D S Theresa, Design consultant Jay S W Marcy, writer Support U Contract writer 3 Johns Money bank!

Slide 8: Product 1: Proliance • 4 RH projects with 2000 help topics for Proliance with 400 duplicated topics • 10 bulletins, 10 white papers, installation manual, upgrade manual in Word • Readmes in FrontPage • Technical Library for Developers in Notepad • 1000 kb items in Pivotal 1999 (no XML)

Slide 9: Product 2: Prolog • 2500 help topics in Prolog with about 600 duplicated topics • 8 online help systems RoboHelp • 50 technical bulletins in Word • Readmes, Installation guides, Upgrade guides in FrontPage • 3000 knowledge base items in Pivotal database from 1999 (no XML capabilities)

Slide 10: Help Situation • RH had problems with big projects • No Version Control • No technical writers on staff • Things had reached critical mass

Slide 11: Things They Wanted • To fix things up, bring them up to date • To hire a writer • Coordinate with Support Services (in California)

Slide 12: Coordinating with Support • Too many resources meant customers couldn’t find information. • Information was out of date. • Support needed to drive more people to the finding information on the website, away from emails and phone calls.

Slide 16: Helping Support • Documentation was important to Support, so why not integrate with them more? • New SupportLink WebHelp proposed • Support Manager buys in!

Slide 17: Tool evaluation requirements • Technical documentation oriented • Import from RH and Word • Something like RH, but have much better content reuse options

Slide 18: Choosing Flare • Offered the most options in terms of functionality • Worked most easily with RH • Lower cost • Lower perceived learning curve

Slide 19: Business case • Reviewed why we should move from to Flare. • Written for the V.P of R&D

Slide 21: Project plan Iteration 1 and 2 reviewed: – Purpose – Objectives – Scope – Resources – Timeline – Effort Estimate

Slide 24: Project estimate Gave an estimate for when the project could be accomplished with two writers vs three writers.

Slide 25: Writer Writer Writer

Slide 26: Presentation to R&D • People were curious • Something fresh was happening for a stagnant department

Slide 31: Implementing Decided to change both products at the same time, but slightly delayed the second product so I could train the technical writer to do: • Information model • Content audit • Detailed reuse model

Slide 32: Information model • The information model gave a high level overview of the deliverables we would create. • This was more for people outside the department who wanted to know what we were doing, and easy way to see content reuse.

Slide 34: Content audit The content audit was much more in depth and looked at all the documentation and where it was duplicated.

Slide 35: Detailed reuse model The detailed reuse model showed on a topic-by-topic basis where the content would be reused and in which deliverables.

Slide 37: Keeping in Touch We were also in contact with: • Support Services • Marketing • R&D

Slide 38: SupportLink mockups • Done in Visio • We asked for CSS support and graphic design support • Acted as a proof of concept

Slide 40: Design Help with Flare skin • The graphic designer made it look pretty • And was concerned about usability and “Web 2.0” • Yay!

Slide 42: Importing KB Items • Worked with Support to figure out the knowledge base process. • Items up to date • Not duplicated

Slide 43: Technical Library • CTO needs a Technical Library • “I want the ‘MSDN look and feel’.” • I’ve seen the MSDN and it’s not that attractive, so I asked him what he meant

Slide 44: It was clear: Documentation suffered from a lack of understanding in R&D.

Slide 45: Support relied on the documentation to be accurate and concise, but it wasn’t.

Slide 46: Rarely do we measure technical support efficiency in terms of useful documentation because we’re not familiar with the connection.

Slide 47: This transition was large for everyone: move from multiple sources, lots of browsing, to searching in one place for the necessary information.

Slide 48: In early releases, some Support staff panicked when information was missing. To succeed, to show our flexibility and willingness, we had to be accommodating and understanding.

Slide 49: By reaching out from documentation, we were able to start a team effort and build understanding. 90% of people bought in

Slide 50: Without the enthusiasm and excitement, the project would not have gone as well. (Link to WebSite unavailable)

Slide 51: Info Theresa Putkey tputkey@keypointe.ca www.keypointe.ca