CM: A Case Study

Content Management: a Case Study

We started planning our content management (CM) program over two years ago and are progressing by carefully implementing each step. Work is proceeding primarily through the effort of teams that provide deliverables. In earlier phases, teams put into place the foundation for future work and did pilot work. In later phases, teams put into reality the plans.

Phase I: Pilot Teams and Individuals Plan the Program

Over two years ago, teams looked at how best to proceed with a content management program at our organization. The various teams gathered information looking at web sites, literature such as Ann Rockley's Managing Enterprise Content, and other sources. The topics the teams looked at included:

What do groups who have successfully done this say works best?
What tools are available?
How much time should we give ourselves?
What should the budget be?
What are the best processes for a CM program?

Our technical communication organization supports Rockwell Automation, a supplier of industrial automation control and information solutions. We provide print documentation such as installation instructions and user manuals, plus online help. Our CM effort would include not only our own publications but those of the marketing communications group as well as the rest of the enterprise.

Phase II: Teams and Individuals Continue Planning

Teams met as needed to complete the process of tool selection, process planning, and related activities. For example, one team on controlled language looked at how best to tackle this issue in the context of a CM program. A style guide/editor team also met to discuss best practices. Information architecture issues were also addressed, with reuse and best practices in mind.

The style guide/editing team concentrated on issues of reuse and best practices and process. The style guide and checklists that emerged were distributed to information developers to follow. The style guide and editor and information developer checklists were some of the deliverables.


Phase III: Teams and Individuals Imnplement the Plans

As we entered this phase, information developers wrote to the latest style guide and followed templates developed by the information architects and their teams. Information developers coded the publications, which were in Adobe Framemaker, in a way that would translate to the new CM tools. This labor intensive process also involved tracking the hours involved in reformatting publications to the new formats and codes.

Arbortext was selected by the team as the tool as teams continued to meet to develop style guide improvements, editing process improvements, and architecture changes.

Phase IV: Future Plans

With a Go Live date in the future, teams that have not yet completed their deliverables continue to meet. The hope is that with all this careful planning, Go Live will be smoother and CM program success is more likely.


(graphic) The Editor Checklist helps editors with their process.
(graphic) The Developer Checklist helps information developers as they develop content.
(graphic) The editor process helps keep terms the same for reuse.

A Note on Managing Enterprise Content


This book was given to various team members to provide a foundation in content management. The author specializes in enterprise content management (ECM) and related processes and methodologies. The intended audience for the book includes content managers, information architects, and authors who are responsible for creating enterprise content. The book covers:



* The basis of a unified content strategy
* Performing a substantive audit: Determining business requirements
* Design, tools, and technologies
* Moving to a unified content strategy
* Checklist for implementing a unified content strategy
* Writing for multiple media
* Vendors and tools checklist


What is ECM and How Does Tech Com Fit In?



Wikipedia helps to show how the overall definition of ECM fits in with the concept and scope of the book. ECM is called "any of the strategies and technologies employed in the information technology industry for managing the capture, storage, security, revision control, retrieval, distribution, preservation and destruction of documents and content."


Concerning the business purpose of ECM, Wikipedia states that "ECM systems are designed… so that an organization… can more effectively meet business goals (increase profit or improve the efficient use of budgets), serve its customers (as a competitive advantage, or to improve responsiveness), and protect itself (against non-compliance, lawsuits, uncoordinated departments or turnover within the organization)." This statement comes from a an Association for Information and Image Management International (AIIM) document(1).



On the essential nature of ECM, the AIIM document says " … for a large enterprise, ECM is not regarded as an optional expense, where it is essential to content preservation and re-usability, and to the control of access to content, whereas, very small organizations may find their needs temporarily met by carefully managed shared folders and a wiki, for example. Recent trends in business and government indicate that ECM is becoming a core investment for organizations of all sizes, more immediately tied to organizational goals than in the past: increasingly more central to what an enterprise does, and how it accomplishes its mission."




By writing this book, the technical communication author involves herself in the discourse on this important subject, especially on how to approach content development. Both the tools used for ECM and the content itself are critical to the definition and success of an ECM endeavor. Ann Rockley is concentrating in her book on content. Is content the most important element to the success of an organization’s ECM effort? You could make a case for that or at least state that content is undeniably a major element and worthy of discussion as tackled in this book.




What is the Challenge?




Imagine an organization with many information products in many languages using multiple media. How can you keep all this content accurate and current? How can you use current tools best to achieve the goal of providing customers with accurate and current information? That is the challenge.

As stated in Rockley's book "too often, content is created by authors working in isolation: …too often walls are erected among content areas: … which leads to content being created, and recreated, and recreated, often with changes or differences at each iteration: … with a unified content strategy] organizations can rely on content being the same wherever it appears."




Is It All About Reuse?




Yes. Reuse is a key element as shown by the statement in the book that "content reuse is fundamental to a successful unified content strategy" and the example in the book about how the same content, in this case on the subject of time tracking, can go into three information products: training, user documentation, and help. The book has another example on reusing the same product description in a brochure, operations guide, and e-commerce site. It is easy to relate to these examples and see how reuse would be the ideal way to go.




Noting that reuse in not a new concept in the business world, the author points out that many industries have been using reuse to improve quality and consistency as well as realize reduced development time and maintenance costs. The books shows how models identify what type of reuse is appropriate. Reuse can take on these forms: opportunistic, systematic, locked, derivative, nested. The Web site and book provide theoretical examples of how reuse could work. Real world examples would be welcome at a future date.




What Are the Significant Concepts?




On the Web site are examples of these significant concepts:

* Analyzing your content — The example shows an analysis of information products that span an owner’s guide, quick reference card, quick start guide, press release, Web site, brochure, product package, and label package insert. The analysis shows what pieces can be reused including the company logo, contact information, product description, setting up the equipment, testing, and solving problems.

* Sample model — The sample model gets into the granular analysis to include semantic, element type (container and element), base element (XML, Word, FrameMaker), and architectural (product sheet, brochure, Web site, e-catalog).

* Separating content from format — The Web site shows an information model for a product description to span a show catalog, brochure, press release, and Web site.

These concepts are key to an understanding of the unified content strategy proposed.




An Overview on Developing the Strategy




Implementation of the unified content strategy covers these phases:

*Analysis: Involves identifying the pain in an organization, analyzing ccontent life cycle and performing a content audit, and envisioning the unified content life cycle.

* Design: Covers design of information models, definition of metadata, design of dynamic content and workflow and plan for change management processes.

* Tools and technologies Selection: Involves picking the tools that is best for your organization and your authors’ abilities in terms of what you have established during your design phase.

* Development: Revolves around changing the way you work, providing help to authors on how to collaborate and write in the same way.




Writing for Multiple Media




This appendix on writing for multiple media includes material that holds special relevance and interest to anyone going through a content management initiative. The appendix is also a summary or refresher of good technical writing approaches. Ideas about how to implement the author’s unified content approach across multiple media appear in this part of the book. There is not anything surprising here. Instead, there is support for the idea that classic technical writing approaches work best for managing content in presentations such as online documentation, the Web, wireless devices, and paper. As an example of an approach that would work, one table in the book covers online documentation and the Web where these apply.

* Write succinctly.
* Make information easy to scan.
* Layer information.
* Write useful titles.



A Book for Multiple Audiences




For a technical communicator audience this appendix provides reinforcement for a classic and conservative approach to writing for reuse and multiple media. If, on the other hand, this book is read by a different audience not familiar with basic technical writing principles, this appendix would be a great treatment of the subject.



Author: Ann Rockley, with Pamela Kostur and Steve Manning. 2003. Indianapolis, IN : New Riders Publishing. ISBN 0-7357-1306-5. 565 pages, including a glossary, bibliography, five appendixes, and an index. $39.99 USD (softcover).

(1) AIIM Industry Watch: State of the ECM Industry ©2006 AIIM The ECM Association, Moving from Why? To How?: The Maturing of ECM Users

Summary of proposed article

Content Management: a Case Study

We started the plans for our content management (CM) program over two years ago and are progressing by carefully planning and implementing each step. Work is proceeding primarily through the effort of teams that provide deliverables. In earlier phases, teams put into place the foundation for future work and did pilot work. In later phases, teams put into reality the plans.

Phase I: Pilot Teams and Individuals Plan the Program

Over two years ago teams looked at how best to proceed with a content management program at our organization. The various teams gathered information looking at web sites, literature such as Ann Rockley's Managing Enterprise Content, and other sources. The topics the teams looked at included:

What do groups who have successfully done this say works best?
What tools are available?
How much time should we give ourselves?
What should the budget be?
What are the best processes for a CM program?

Our technical communication organization supports Rockwell Automation, a supplier of industrial automation control and information solutions. We provide print documentation such as installation instructions and user manuals, plus online help. Our CM effort would include not only our own publications but those of the marketing communications group as well as the rest of the enterprise.


Phase II: Teams and Individuals Continue to Lay the Foundation

Teams met as needed to complete the process of tool selection, process planning, and related activities. For example, one team on controlled language looked at how best to tackle this issue in the context of a CM program. A style guide/editor team also met to discuss best practices. Information architecture issues were also addressed, with reuse and best practices in mind.

The style guide/editing team concentrated on issues of reuse and best practices and process. The style guide and checklists that emerged were distributed to information developers to follow. Additional details are available from Lisa Adair.


Phase III: Teams and Individuals Implement the Plans

As we entered this phase, information developers wrote to the latest style guide and followed templates developed by the information architects and their teams. Information developers coded the publications, which were in Adobe Framemaker, in a way that would translate to the new CM tools. This labor intensive process also involved tracking the hours involved in reformatting publications to the new formats and codes.

Arbortext was selected by the team as the tool as teams continued to meet to develop style guide improvements, editing process improvements, and architecture changes.

Phase IV: Future Plans

With a Go Live date in the future, teams that have not yet completed their deliverables continue to meet. The hope is that with all this careful planning, Go Live will be smoother and CM program success is more likely.

Lisa’s article

xx