Moving a Company from Chaos to Content Management

Moving Content from Chaos to Content
Management

Pam Noreault
pamnoreault@gmail.com
Twitter pnoreault

About Pam

• 20 years experience in communications, content management, and technical
writing
• Specializes in content reuse, topic-based content creation, DITA conversions, and
trends in user assistance
• Researches and implements new ways to involve customers in user assistance
• BS in English/Spanish Education from The Ohio State University
• MA in English/Professional Writing from Wright State University
• SR STC Member
• UXPA Member
• Sr. User Experience Content Specialist (aka – Information Architect) at ACI
Worldwide

Session Results
• Case study for my position
• Content Specialist initiatives
• Quest for change
• Start - know where you are (data inventory)

(Permission Required for Reuse)
Copyright Pam Noreault 2012
• Build the foundation
• Obtain the business goals
• Gather the business requirements
• Determine content strategy pieces
• Write the content strategy (iterate, iterate)
• Deploy the solution
• Measure the success

Case Study for Content Specialist
What is your reality?
• Disparate content
• No standardization

• No repository
• No content reuse
• Not ready for translation
• Reactive not proactive to change
• Not ready for mobile
• Producing static non-interactive content

Content Strategist Initiatives
• Create a unified content strategy that crosses business units
• Implement a common lexicon
• Implement embedded help and training into products
• Create content communities where needed

• Generate revenue from content initiatives
• Establish partnerships with key business units
• Establish partnerships with customers
• Be a content evangelist, strategist, and leader

Quest for Change
• Hire an expert from the outside or someone who is greatly
respected from within
• Look for someone with a successful track record
• Leads people without managing them
Delivers to deadlines and produces results

•
• Has a great story and can tell a great story
• Earns the respect of others
• Provides honest and timely feedback
• Motivates others to success
• Culture change is required and you need a team dedicated to
results

Start - Know Where You Are
• Complete a content inventory
• Complete a tools inventory
• Complete a skills inventory on
your personnel
Create a data

• Complete a styles inventory
• Complete a processes inventory
baseline • Document the current workflow

Reality - Data Baseline


It Takes a Small Village
• Research what others are doing in your
industry
• Socialize your ideas with others
• Engage the masses in your company for
ideas, feedback, and company metrics

• Seek out and secure an executive sponsor
• Create a team that spans multiple sites
and business groups (create partnerships)

Important: Success cannot be had if you
work in a silo.

Build the Foundation
• Formulate specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, timely
(SMART) business goals
• Determine the business requirements
• Marry the goals to the business requirements

• Create a pitch deck with these business goals and
requirements
• Socialize the pitch deck with an executive sponsor
• Build out your high-level steps and major milestones (content
strategy, project plan)
• Add the steps and milestones to the pitch deck
• Seek approval to proceed – Present your pitch deck, get
commitment to the time and resources needed to proceed

Typical Business Goals
Improve Effectiveness of Deliverables for
Customers

Improve the Time to Delivery

Reduce Operational Costs and Increase
Revenue

Every piece of my strategy, every task, and every decision must align with
these three business goals.

Typical Business Requirements
• Common tools
• Common content repository
• Content reuse
• Standardized outputs

• Standardized processes and styles
• Standardized workflow

Content Strategy

Must be unified to
consider current and
future content and
delivery platforms

Way more than
Good news – You
just tools – tools
have a start on
will not fix the
the strategy with
problems (culture
goals and
change and mind
requirements
shift)

Content Strategy Pieces
• Data baseline results
• Business goals
• Business requirements
• Standardized outputs – now/future

• Standardized tools and repository
• Content migration
• Content reuse
• Required training and deployment
• Measure success

• Iterate, iterate, iterate – the strategy is never done
• Report to executive sponsor every step of the way

Outputs – Now/Future
1. Know the current needs – data inventory
2. Research the industry for standards
3. Determine future needs
4. Plan to re-evaluate annually and iterate (evolution not

revolution)

• You must engage product owners, architects, developers, and
business analysts to standardize output delivery (embedded
help, online help, etc.)

Bitter Truth
• Quote from a close colleague/friend, “Documentation
initiatives will never be a part of the plan until it becomes so
painful that they have to address it, and then it becomes a
panicked, patch-worked plan.”


Processes, Styles and Workflow
• Create a team and empower them to standardize processes,
styles, and workflow
• Select which processes and styles need to change from your data
inventory
• Implement industry standards where they make sense for

processes and styles
• Determine the governance of the processes and styles (let the
CMS govern styles)
• Standardize the workflow (let the CMS govern)
• Iterate as needed

Tools and Repository
• Create a tools team and empower them
• Create requirements for the tools
• Research tools and narrow the selection to 2 or 3
• Demo tools and collect feedback

• Complete customer reference checks
• Schedule proof-of-concept training
• Complete proof-of-concept use-case testing document
• Complete use-case testing with a team
• Complete testing report
• Make a recommendation for the tools

Proof-of-Concept Report

Pass vs Failed Use Cases Pros and Cons from Testers

Report

Value Stream Mapping
• Baseline of current time and effort based
Vendor Response and Support on current processes
• Approximate time and effort for the
processes with new tools
• Report savings back to company

Content Migration
Talk to others – What have others done?

Determine the migration path

• Manual content migration
• Consulting firm to complete the content migration
• Automated migration with a tool such as Stilo Migrate

Determine the migration process – checklist

Prioritize the content for migration

Content Reuse

Use the priority list
Start with the most obvious – Analyze high-priority content for
copyright, overviews, notes, etc. reuse

Other options
Software that will analyze Companies that will analyze
content for reuse your content for reuse

Required Training and Deployment

Determine required Create a project plan
training for solution

• Topic-based authoring deployment
• Process training • Include the training
• Styles training schedule – phase it in
• Workflow training • Include the tools
• Tools training schedule – phase it in

Remember the Business Goals
1. Improve Effectiveness of Deliverables for
Customers
2. Improve the Time to Delivery
3. Reduce Operational Costs and Increase Revenue

• Every piece of the strategy, every task, and every
decision must align with these three business goals.

Measure Success
Improve effectiveness
• Measure content consistency through content reuse
• Determine support calls related to content for a period of time and verify
whether it trends down or up after implementation

Improve time to delivery (time savings) and operational costs
• Cutting and pasting content
• Searching for content
• Publishing content manually
• Manual processes
• Manual workflows
• Content delivery times
• Content reuse

Know Where to Put Time Back
• Beware – Businesses see savings in relation to the number of
employees
• Be prepared to justify where employees will spend the time
they gain in efficiency
• Strategy is never done

• Customer satisfaction is key
• Partner with Sales, Support, and Marketing to take your content
to the next level (revenue)
• Seek out additional value that content can add now that you have
more time.
• Create a backlog or determine what gaps exist in content that writers
can now address
• Resolve customer satisfaction issues with content.
• Ready yourself for mobile
• Create a content repository for your customers

Content Strategy Pieces - Review
• Data baseline results
• Business goals
• Business requirements
• Standardized outputs – now/future

• Standardized tools and repository
• Content migration
• Content reuse
• Required training and deployment
• Measure success

• Iterate, iterate, iterate – the strategy is never done
• Report to executive sponsor every step of the way

Session Results – Review
• Case study for my position
• Content Specialist initiatives
• Quest for change
• Start - know where you are (data inventory)

• Build the foundation
• Obtain the business goals
• Gather the business requirements
• Determine content strategy pieces
• Write the content strategy (iterate, iterate)
• Deploy the solution
• Measure the success

Thank You
• Pam Noreault
• pamnoreault@gmail.com
• Twitter – pnoreault
• LinkedIN – Pamela Noreault

• Please share your successes and your frustrations with me

Moving a Company from Chaos to Content Management

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