Chapter 22 Transition Plan

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Chapter 22Transition Plan
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Overview

• The long-term goal of a UCS is to provide for the
  sharing of consistent content across the
  organization
• Content silos and disparate technologies can pose
  challenges to this goal
• Unrealistic to implement complete UCS from the
  beginning
• Implement your strategy in a modular fashion that
  can be built upon as you achieve small successes
• This chapter provides
• Guidance on scoping UCS (not too small, not too
  big)
• Guidance on implementing UCS with limited budget
• How to implement UCS if you do not have
  structured AT
• Guidance on implementing UCS in a phased approach

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Scoping your UCS
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Implementing in one area

• Barriers on cost, organizational structure,
  logistics ? not possible to implement UCS across
  enterprise
• If you see an opportunity to implement UCS in one
  area, identify ROI for that area
• Implement UCS in small scale or in large scale
• The only thing that change is the size of your
  technological implementation your analysis and
  modeling processes remain the same and benefits
  remain the same

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Act small, think big

• Think too big means considering the large needs
  of the organization so your solution will meet
  future needs and encompass a broader UCS
• Conduct a substantive audit across the areas that
  may participate in the future
• Model for future reuse
• Take the time to think through how your models
  will address future opportunities for reuse
• You don't have to model content for all the areas
  from the beginning, but it does mean that you
  should model the reusable components

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Manage Widespread Implementation

• Excitement, enthusiasm, and ROI convince many
  people in your organization that UCS should be
  implemented in multiple areas ASAP ? exciting but
  problematic
• Implementing in multiple areas at the same time
  can result in a number of logistical issues, a
  resource crunch, and potential implementation in
  consistencies that can cause problem in the
  future
• Start with a proof-of-concept and pilot
• A proof-of-concept (small controlled test of the
  functionality) and pilot (small implementation in
  one area) helps test ideas, test multiple
  technology, and work through your design and
  processes in a small, controlled environment
• Learn by making mistake, delay your tools decision

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Manage Widespread Implementation (Cont.)

• Consider using outside resources
• Facilitate the coordination of the analysis and
  modeling process
• Using your resources where it is critical and
  supplementing where it make sense
• Create a top-level cross-functional team
• Coordinate the information modeling, metadata,
  workflow, and technological implementation
• Ensure that information is effectively shared
  across the implementation teams
• Require participants from all the involved areas
  as well as IT
• Require a project manager who is accepted by all
  areas

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Implement across the organization

• You may find it difficult to convince others to
  adopt UCS
• Prove the effectiveness in the first area
• Validate the expected ROI through ongoing
  collection of metrics
• Share your results to help others understand the
  benefits that can be accrued from a UCS

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Structure without structured authoring tools
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Overview

• Structure is an integral part of a successful UCS
• Structure provides consistency between materials,
  making reuse transparent to the reader and
  improve readability
• The use of models and structured writing
  principles can be adopted without structured
  editors
• It is more difficult to enforce structure without
  a structured editor, but it can be encouraged
  with a detailed authoring style guide
• In the case of an unstructured editor, you need
  to formalize the structure of your models in a
  style guide

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Style Guide

• Semantic model
• Semantic information (tags) in chapter 8
• The process of modeling remains the same whether
  you use a structured editor or not
• Base elements
• Guide authors in selecting the correct tag for
  the model
• In a traditional authoring tool, you may use a
  large number of semantic tags, which results in a
  large volume of style tags
• You should still have a semantic model that tells
  your authors what they need to put into the
  content, but you also need to tell them which
  non-semantic style tag (base element) to use in
  their editor

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Style Guide (Cont.)

• Reuse map
• Identify where content can and should be reused
• Use reuse maps, authors can determine whether a
  reusable element is likely to exist and whether
  the elements they are writing are likely to be
  reused elsewhere
• Writing guidelines
• Provide any tips or rules about how to write an
  element
• Example
• Always provide a sample of completed content that
  uses the model
• The sample should be a best practices example
  that illustrates how the desired content should
  be written

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Authoring and Structure Guidelines for a Warning
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Working with a limited budget

• Adopt structured writing chunking, labeling,
  relevance, consistency, reuse
• Write to models
• Adopt an AT that supports reuse with or without
  CMS
• Some AT provide functionality about reuse through
  features such as conditions or user profiles that
  enable you to mark text to be shown or hidden in
  specified circumstances
• Import text by reference

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Working with a limited budget (Cont.)

• Investigate low-cost content management options
• ASP service, lease-to-own, modular versions
• Create a database to store your content
• Adopt a source code management tool check in,
  check out, version control
• Build a tracking spreadsheet and develop some
  strict guidelines for content reuse and storage
  (reinforce continuously)

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A Phased Approach

• Implementing in phases ensures that you
  incrementally design, test, and implement in a
  controlled fashion
• You can get the bugs out of the implementation on
  a small scale before implementing on a large
  scale
• Conduct a proof-of-concept
• Test design decisions and tools
• A very small test used to make sure that you can
  address some of the issues identified in the
  substantive audit, and to test the tools

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A Phased Approach (Cont.)

• Conduct a usability test
• Verify the usability (effectiveness) of your
  processes and technology
• Conduct usability testing before the pilot or
  full implementation
• During a usability test, users with different
  roles test the processes and technology to
  identify any problems so they can be addressed
  before widespread implementation
• Usability testing involves testing representative
  tasks in as real-life a scenario as possible
• Multiple users should participate in the
  usability test to ensure you get a good
  representative sample of results
• Modify your implementation based on the results
  of the usability test

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A Phased Approach (Cont.)

• Conduct a pilot
• Select the group, department, or area where you
  plan to roll out a scale-down version of the
  solution
• A pilot allows for thorough testing of the UCS
  processes and infrastructure
• A pilot is conducted over a period of weeks or
  months
• Participants perform their tasks using the new
  system
• Work on real content for real projects with real
  deadline
• Monitor the pilot to gather information and
  provide support throughout
• Ensure that participants have the help they need
  with questions and implementation problems

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A Phased Approach (Cont.)

• Roll out to one or many departments
• After you have thoroughly tested your processes,
  design, and technology, you are ready to start
  rolling out your implementation to other
  departments
• You can choose to roll out departments
  successively or concurrently
• Remember that departments or areas need a lot of
  design work to complete their models, metadata,
  and workflows, even though the system
  configurations should be similar

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Resources

• http//www.managingenterprisecontent.com/