In a study of 93 documentation teams, 73% of teams reported spending most of their time and efforts managing files, managing storage locations, and other tasks rather than creating content in the first place. And that is where the value to organizations of using a Component Content Management System (CCMS) begins. The traditional process of documentation management can become a serious impediment to the documentation team’s ability to create high quality documentation for end users.
The breaking point of traditional documentation workflows
Documenting in a shared folder or even a couple of documents works well for a very small documentation team of 5 people. But as documentation teams grow to 15 to 20 or even more people, the need for a systematic way to manage content increases exponentially and in the end renders the mere management of files the biggest productivity killer for documentation teams. Writers waste hours to try to merge changes to the same information. Subject Matter Experts are put off by the complexities of the process and therefore do not contribute.
The number of problems that a Documentation team needs to solve will increase exponentially when the team of 5 writers grows to 15 or 20. When a team of 5 writers work with a shared folder containing all the documents that are being written by the team, the team of 5 writers will probably solve most of the problems that need to be solved by the team. However, as the team grows to 15 or 20 writers, a more systematic way of working with the content is needed. Many hours of a writer’s time are spent trying to find the last version of a document. Most Subject Matter Experts (SME) don’t want to participate in the documentation process because they think they have enough problems to solve and that the writer should solve these problems for them.
A direct correlation exists between the amount of time and effort a company puts into documentation and the end quality of their documentation. A team of a few documentation writers, working from a shared folder of documents, will soon find that hours of a writer’s time are wasted reworking versions of identical content in different files. A medium-sized team of documentation writers (15 – 20 people) will find that even more time is wasted searching for the most up-to-date copy of a document.
How component-based architecture changes everything
Single-sourcing eliminates redundancy
One of the core concepts that make up a CCMS is the component-based architecture. This architecture treats all information as individual pieces of information or content and allows that information to be used to create the majority of a product’s documentation. The information is first written as a component and then used in other components such as user guides, API documentation, and training materials. The information is only written once and then used many times. This also means that if that information is ever changed then the change can be made once and then all of the locations where that information is used will reflect that change.
In single-sourcing information, such as a product specification, is written once and then used in many different documents such as user guides, API documentation, and training materials. When a change is made to a feature of a product that has been covered in previously written information, that information can be updated in one place and the update is then automatically applied to all other places where that information is used. This means that what once took 10 hours to complete to make updates to 10 different documents now only takes 1 hour to update a single component of information.
Structured authoring enforces consistency
The CCMS is used as a platform for structured authoring. This means that all content is created with a predefined structure (such as using templates and models for content). This in turn means that the documentation team’s style guide (which would normally be a set of guidelines for writers) is enforced by the platform as a set of rules.
A further advantage of a CCMS is the support of so-called structured authoring. This type of authoring allows the writer to concentrate fully on the content of a document and to write it within a template that ensures that the document is always written correctly. When the content of a document is reviewed, the reviewer can then focus on checking the accuracy and the clarity of the content as a whole.
Operational advantages that drive adoption
CCMS Systems have the key advantage for documentation teams to remove friction from their work processes. In particular, collaborative editing of related content is turned into a systematic process instead of a chaotic one.
However, the greatest advantage to a CCMS is improved translation workflows. If you only translate the changes to components since the last release, it saves a lot of time and is very cost effective. It can save up to 60% in costs for large documentation sets.
Automatic publishing to various formats of output such as print, web-based help systems or even mobile guides is another workable feature that automatically reworks the work into the appropriate output format thereby eliminating the tedious hours of work of formatting a series of separate documents into one body of work.
Regulated industries also benefit in that automated change tracking and approval workflows (found in IXIA CCMS and other documentation management systems) can ensure that all changes to documentation have been properly tracked and that all required approvals have been recorded.
Making the transition work in practice
Transforming a documentation team to develop content with a CCMS requires more than just implementing a new tool. First, the documentation team has to adopt a new way of working with content, i.e. writing document-based content versus component-based content. Training the writers to develop content with a CCMS therefore not only implies training them to use the new software, but also training them in the new content strategies. It is therefore advised to start small with pilot projects and to work through the implementation step by step. Migration of existing content requires time and, depending on
The biggest issue with these systems is that they are quite different from most documentation tools (Word, Framemaker, etc.) and therefore more than just feature training is required. The team must learn the new content models, and be able to write and revise content within the constraints of the system. Start with a pilot or two, within your current workflow, and as your team becomes more proficient with the tool, you can then add more projects to the mix.
The migration of very large content libraries (of 10,000+ pages or more) can be completed in 6 to 12 months, or less, depending on the complexity of the migration.
Writers can be as productive writing with a CCMS as they are with traditional documentation tools. It takes some time for writers to get used to a new way of working with components but once they have mastered the basic steps for creating content they will be as productive as ever. Studies have shown that organizations can reduce the time spent creating documentation by as much as 30% to 50% after they have fully transitioned to a CCMS.
A Content Management System is more than a tool to manage documentation: it is a way that a team of writers can work, a change from a totally reactive, maintenance oriented job to proactively managing content.
