When customer expectations uproot your documentation processes and PDF content offering, how do you mobilize a team that has used the same tools and processes to create book-based, unstructured content for over two decades? When new demands drive the change for structured content to support a myriad of users and multi-channel publishing, the logical choice is a DITA workflow. Join Ciena, The Content Era and Adobe Tech Comm at LavaCon 2017 Portland for an immersive workshop that highlights how a DITA workflow is possible with familiar tools, a modest budget, and creative handling of the content.

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Documentation Transformation - Workshop
Alexander Lum
Lavacon – Portland, Oregon
November 2017
Implementing a Customer-driven
Transition to DITA Content
A Step-by-Step Journey to Success

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Alexander Lum
Director
Product Documentation Development
Susanna Carlisi
Senior Advisor
Content Strategist & Tools Specialist
Thomas Aldous
Founder / CEO
The Content Era, LLC

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About us
1,300+
customers across
North America, CALA,
EMEA and APAC
80%
of the world’s largest
service providers
being served
Aiding government, web-scale
providers, Fortune 2000
enterprises, and other private
network operators
5,500+
employees
in 30+ countries
We focus on inspiring and enabling rewarding experiences that lead to exceptional outcomes.
We’re a network strategy and technology company
Two Technical Communications groups – 5 Managers and 33 writers

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THE CASE FOR CHANGE
The world is changing,
Our customers are changing
Putting the pieces together to deliver an
exceptional customer experience
DRIVING NEW WAYS USER ACCESS INFORMATION

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CIENA’S CORPORATE CONTENT GOALS
Gather and analyze data
Survey
Interviews
Formal or informal users feedback
Deliver Exceptional Users
Experience
UNDERSTANDING YOUR ECOSYSTEM
Environment
Customers
Stakeholders

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CIENA TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION BEFORE MIGRATION
Typically, PDFs and epubs
published on internal and
external website
HTML on product
• Each PDF between 200 to 1000 pages
• Each library documentation suite is between 2000 to
18000 pages (10 to 60 PDFs)
• Print and book-centric layout
• Waterfall and Agile process.
• On average, there are a release deliverables every week
• Unstructured FrameMaker Authoring Tool
• 20+ conditional tags, variables, cross-references, graphics,
tables

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DECIDING ON THE AUTHORING TOOL
Environment
Industry Trends
Competitor Adoption
Scalability
STAGE APPROACH
Research, Analyze & Define Requirements
Validate and make adjustments
Prototype
Many Mini Trainings
Set Mini Milestones
Start small

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BUSINESS CASE
What Customer Issues are you trying to solve?
Does it align with one of the Corporate Goals?
How much will it cost and how long is the transition?
Gaining Corporate Backing & Budget
Who will you need help from?
Provide Demo of the proposed solution
What is the result of your Data Analysis?
Get Stakeholders’ buy-in

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Pulling The Team Together
Own it - Together!
SO, WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP
Your greatest impact? Collaboration!
Are all project Members represented?
Do you need External help?
Who is your Leader for this?

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Ciena Documentation Transformation – The Approach
• Surveyed End Users
• Interviews
Top 3 Issues:
• Access
• Search
• Usability
• Information optimized for print
• PDF to web for download
• Access information online is accepted
• Full-text searches across an
information base
• Information optimized for digital
• Responsive HTML for immediate browsing
• Focus on only relevant content is expected
• Navigation drill down to desired content
• Current offering
• Authoring Tools

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