Collaborative Authoring in DITA, or: How We All Learned to Share

James Hom

Engineering Program Manager

March 2010

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FY09:$3.5 Billion*

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* Non-GAAP Revenue

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Same processes

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▪ Improve IT and business efficiency

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Before DITA: Single writer owns one book

1990s technology:– Unstructured

Framemaker & Robohelp

1790s ownership:– One writer, one book– One work of content,

lovingly hand-crafted from start to finish

– Content used only in that book

– Writing groups focused on output formats

Image source: Wikipedia Commons

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With DITA: Share and reuse the work

Now:Interchangeable parts:

“topics”– Multiple authors per deliverable– Content written for any output

format– Content reusable in multiple

deliverables

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Writers own relationships and technologies, not books

Sunnyvale

RTP

Bangalore

Waltham

6

Pittsburgh

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Component CM lets us share work globally: topics written once are used everywhere

Sunnyvale

RTP

Bangalore

7

WalthamPittsburgh

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Writers manage groups of topics with submaps

Sunnyvale

RTP

Bangalore

8

WalthamPittsburgh

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Publication captain builds deliverable using a master map

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Publication Captain

Publication

Deliverable outputsMaster map

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Collaboration requires additional communication between topic owners

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Cross-global, cross-timezone communication via workflow states

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DITA’s structure isn’t enough to ensure reusability

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Writing style and usage DITA style and usage Editors ensure common voice Tools (Author Assistant) as

“Power Style Guide”

Style rules

Conrefs and Variables controlled in libraries

Conditions centrally managed and owned by the “Condition Maven”

Future: controlled vocabulary for translation

Shared constructs

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Team representatives define process and content rules for the organization

Decisions affect the entire organization, so include representatives from each writing group, editors, and tools.

Ensures buy-in and coverage of all issues.

Need agreement otherwise can’t share everywhere.

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The most important thing: Trust

Collaboration at this scale requires a high level of trust in your colleagues.

– Trust that their writing is good enough for your deliverable.

– Trust that they got the technical details right.

– Trust that they got the content edited and reviewed and fixed any errors.

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Questions?