MarkLogic at JetBlue Cast Study: Blue Guru CMS

Patricia Seybold GroupTrusted Advisors to Customer-Centric Executives

BlueGuruJetBlues Content Management and Publishing System

By Mitchell KramerSr. VP and Sr. Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group

A Case Study Prepared for Mark Logic by Patricia Seybold Group

Patricia Seybold Group Boston, MA 02129 Phone 617.742.5200 Fax 617.742.1028 www.psgroup.com

BlueGuruJetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemBy Mitchell Kramer, Sr. VP and Sr. Consultant A Case Study Prepared for Mark Logic by Patricia Seybold Group Executive SummaryJetBlue is the seventh-largest passenger air carrier in the U.S., operating over 600 daily flights on a fleet of 297 aircraft in 19 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and five countries in the Caribbean and Latin America. JetBlue was founded in 1998 and currently employs 8,902 full-time and 2,950 part-time Crewmembers. The firm is publicly held (NASDAQ: JBLU) and is headquartered in Forest Hills, NY. Like all U.S. air carriers, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations closely govern JetBlues operations. JetBlue cant fly without FAA certification and continual validation. The FAA performs certification and continual validation by examining the documentation of an air carriers policies, programs, and procedures. JetBlue had a manual documentation system called JBDOCS. Its documents were monolithic manuals, and technical writers who worked in and for operational departments managed them using manual techniques for creating, editing, and publishing. The writers authored manuals in Microsoft Word, incorporated their departments comments, and published completed manuals as PDFs, which were stored in an online library for access by JetBlue operational staff. FAA requirements, as well as issues in maintaining the integrity and consistency of its manuals and the high costs of a decentralized documentation approach, drove JetBlue to replace JBDOCS with a new distributed content management and publishing system called BlueGuru. BlueGuru has four components: governance, organization, processes, and tools and architecture. BlueGurus governance structure, the cross-functional Standards Board, was designed to facilitate the organizational and process changes required in the transformation from JBDOCS. Corporate Publications is BlueGurus organizational component. Its a new unit responsible for designing, implementing, and supporting documentation processes and the tools and technologies that support those processes. Note that document authoring is the responsibility of subject matter experts within operational departments. Corporate Publications provides support for their work.Patricia Seybold Group 2009 1

BlueGuruIn tools and architecture, Microsoft Word carries over from JBDOCS as the authoring tool for BlueGuru, and Microsoft SharePoint is used for document editing workflows and approvals. XML is BlueGurus enabling technology, and MarkLogic Server is its most critical architectural element. XML addresses JetBlues requirements for structured documentsmultiple types, multiple components within each type, hierarchical relationships between components, and component sharing across documents. MarkLogic Server is an XML content management system that automates BlueGurus documentation processes. Its repository stores BlueGurus documents and supports their access and retrieval by Crewmembers, partners, and regulators. This case study report tells the story of JetBlues business transformation from a documentation system of decentralized and manually maintained manuals to a distributed content management and publishing system.

JetBlueSeventh-Largest U.S. Airline JetBlue Airways Corporation is a passenger air carrier that was founded in 1998 and began air service on February 11, 2000. The carrier currently employs 8,902 full-time and 2,950 part-time Crewmembers including 1,745 pilots, 1,938 flight attendants, 3,079 airport operations personnel, 441 technicians, 699 reservation agents, and 2,350 management and other personnel. JetBlues headquarters are in Forest Hills, NY. The firm is publicly held (NASDAQ: JBLU). Lufthansa owns a 19 percent share of the companys equity. JetBlue operates 600 daily flights primarily on point-to-point routes in 19 states, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and five countries in the Caribbean and Latin America, many of them through four focus cities: Boston, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles/Long Beach, and New York/JFK. Based on revenue passenger miles, JetBlue is the seventh largest passenger carrier in the United States. It flies a fleet of 107 Airbus A320 aircraft and 35 Embraer 190 aircraft, the youngest and most fuel-efficient fleet of any major U.S. airline. JetBlue categorizes itself as a value airline and describes its offering as the best domestic coach product. Its value proposition is competitive fares and quality air travel need not be mutually exclusive. JetBlue delivers this value proposition through: Regulated Operations High-quality service and product Low operating costs Brand strength Strength of its people

Like all U.S. air carriers, JetBlue is regulated by several government agencies including the Department of Transportation (DOT) and its Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA). FAA regulations most closely govern JetBlues operations. JetBlue cant fly without FAA certification for its policies and procedures, its aircraft, and its staff. The FAA requiresPatricia Seybold Group 2009

2

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing Systemcontinual validation of JetBlues certified programs in order to maintain those certificates. The FAA performs certification and continual validation by examining the documentation of an air carriers policies, programs, processes, and procedures. FAA regulations include specifications for the content of documentation, for its metadata, and for roles and responsibilities of the personnel who manage it. This Case Study Report The FAAs requirement for continual validation of JetBlues programs has been the driver for JetBlue to transform its approach to documentation from decentralized authoring of a collection of static and monolithic manuals to a distributed content management and publishing system of dynamic, modifiable, and reusable documents. This case study report examines this transformation of JetBlues approach. Weve organized the report into the following sections: Props to the BlueGuru Team Certification for and compliance with regulatory policies and standards JBDOCS, JetBlues previous documentation system Requirements for a new documentation system BlueGuru system design BlueGuru content design and development Critical success factors

Wed like to acknowledge and express our appreciation to JetBlue Crewmembers Murry Christensen, Director Learning Technologies, and Chris Beckmann, Manager Corporate Publications, for their help in the preparation of this case study report. In fact, the case tells their teams story about the issues with JBDOCS, the motivation and requirements for a new system and their work to design, develop, and deploy BlueGuru. Murry and Chris were extremely gracious with their time, patient with their explanations, and thorough with their review and suggestions. In BlueGuru, Murry, Chris, and their staffs have developed and implemented a content management and publishing system that has begun to deliver significant advantages and benefits to JetBlues business as well as becoming JetBlues mechanism for the continual validation of its programs, processes, and procedures by the FAA. We think that BlueGuru has broad applicability. While this case study report examines how a Part 121 carrier has transformed its documentation system, BlueGuru can serve as a model for business transformation and information technology selection and application to organizations of all sizes in many industry segments. The lessons that Murry and Chris teach and the advice that they offer are lessons and advice that can be useful to any distributed or decentralized organization, especially so for large organizations subject to regulatory certification and surveillance. XML is the enabling technology for JetBlues business transformation. As well see in the details of this case study, JetBlue runs its business on structured documents. By structure, it is essential both for use in JetBlues business and for compliance with FAA regulations that documents have:3

A Business Transformation Model with Broad Applicability

XML Is the Enabling Technology

Patricia Seybold Group 2009

BlueGuru Multiple types and multiple instances of each type Multiple components within each type Hierarchical relationships between components Components that may be part of other documents

By design, really by definition, XML addresses all of these requirements for document structure. BlueGuru almost had to be an XML system. MarkLogic Server for Document Management and Publishing While XML is the enabling technology for defining and creating structured documents, MarkLogic Server enables JetBlue to manage these XML documents and to manage: document authoring and editing processes, document publishing, and document authors, editors, approvers, and end users. More specifically, MarkLogic Server enables JetBlues business transformation by supporting: A document lifecycle with distributed authoring and editing, centralized publishing, decentralized access and retrieval on a range of output devices, and external inspection and approval Multiple, predefined and regulated roles and responsibilities for managing and using documents Notification of external entities (the FAA) for modifications to regulated documents Inspection and certification workflows for online FAA inspection of regulated documents

In other words, MarkLogic Server is a document/content management system for XML. It delivers for XML documents what IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server, or Oracle Server do for structured data. MarkLogic Server provides services essential for managing the components and content, the processes, and the users of XML documents stored in its repository.

Documenting an Air Carriers Policies and ProceduresFAA Regulations Given the significance of FAA to this case study, lets take a brief look at where the FAA gets its authority, at its regulatory policy, at its certification and surveillance (continual validation) system called Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS), and at its requirements for documentation. The FAA prescribes what air carriers need to do for certification in a fair amount of detail, but the agency does not prescribe how they need to do it. Air carriers have the flexibility to design and implement documentation systems that suit their management style, organization, and culture.

4


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemFAA Authority The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 prescribes the powers and authorities of the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA uses regulatory policy to implement its powers and authorities. Central to the FAAs regulatory policy is oversight of the obligation of the air carrier to maintain the highest possible degree of safety. The Air Transportation Oversight System (ATOS) implements this FAA policy by providing certification and surveillance of safety controls of air carriers and their owners, pilots, mechanics, and other staff. Under ATOS, the FAA has these three primary responsibilities: 1. In order to issue an air carrier an operating certificate and in order to approve or accept an air carriers programs, the FAA verifies that an air carrier is capable of operating safely and that it complies with prescribed regulations and standards. 2. The FAA conducts periodic reviews to re-verify that an air carrier continues to meet regulatory requirements. The FAA also conducts reviews for re-verification when environmental changes occur. 3. For the purpose of continued operational safety, the FAA continually validates the performance of an air carriers approved and accepted programs. FAA Documentation Requirements Within ATOS, the FAAs surveillance of an air carriers safety controls, its compliance with regulations and standards, and its performance of approved and accepted programs is based mainly on its inspectors reviews of air carriers documentation of those safety controls and programs. In fact, the FAA prescribes regulations for that documentation, Murry explains. The requirements list procedures and define integrity but they dont tell you how to implement them. Key regulations for documentation include: Each certificate holder (certified air carrier) will prepare and keep current a manual of procedures and policies. This manual must be used by flight, ground, and maintenance personnel in conducting their operations. A copy of the manual will be made available to maintenance and ground operations personnel, to its flight crewmembers, and to the FAA Flight Standards district office charged with the overall inspection of its operations. Each employee of the certificate holder to whom a manual or appropriate portions of it is furnished shall keep it up to date with the changes and additions furnished to them. A certificate holder may furnish the persons listed therein with the maintenance part of its manual in printed form or other form, acceptable to the Administrator, that is retrievable in the English language. If the certificate holder furnishes the maintenance part of the manual in other than printed form, it must ensure there is a compatible reading device available to those persons that provides a legible image of the maintenance information and instructions or a system that is able to retrieve the maintenance information and instructions in the English language.5

ATOS


BlueGuru Each manual will have the date of the last revision and revision number on each revised page. The manual must include the name of each management person who is authorized to act for the certificate holder, the person's assigned area of responsibility, and the person's duties, responsibilities, and authority.

A note about these requirements: Manual is a legacy term. We added the bold, italic highlighting. While it was a literal reference to hardcopy, paper manuals at the time the FAA specified the regulations, today it has become a figurative reference to the documentation of an air carriers policies and procedures. For example, JetBlue uses electronic media, even in the system it has transformed. ATOS Safety Attributes The ATOS specification states, The key to safety lies in managing the quality of safetycritical processes. This is a primary responsibility of an air carrier in meeting its regulatory obligations. ATOS employs six safety attributes to evaluate the design of air carrier operating systems. The six safety attributes are: 1. Procedures are documented methods used by air carrier personnel to accomplish a task. 2. Controls are checks and restraints designed into a process to ensure a desired result. 3. Process Measures are used to validate a process and identify problems or potential problems in order to correct them. 4. Interfaces are interactions between processes that must be managed in order to ensure desired outcomes. 5. Responsibility is a clearly identifiable, qualified, and knowledgeable person who is accountable for the quality of a process. 6. Authority is a clearly identifiable, qualified, and knowledgeable person who has the authority to set up and change a process. FAA inspectors use these attributes in their certification and surveillance activities of the documentation of air carriers safety control systems. Inspectors expect that documentation includes these attributes and contains appropriate values for them. As well see, these attributes are a critical design element for JetBlues new documentation system. They are included in the metadata that JetBlue uses for document creation, management, and reporting. JetBlues Application of ATOS Attributes Murry and Chris explain these metadata attributes and describe how JetBlue uses them. Interfaces are the mechanism for reuse, they explain. A content item may appear in several documents. De-icing, for example, and de-icing is usually the example we use because its such a critical process. So, our winter ops program has a de-icing section. We also want our station ops manual to reflect its de-icing procedures. If any of the procedures changes, then we want the changes to ripple from the winter ops programs de-icing section across every manual that references de-icing. De-icing is a criticalPatricia Seybold Group 2009

6

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing Systemprocess that appears in many of our manualsflight ops, tech ops, ground ops, and airport ops, among others. Interfaces represent how the content items describing our deicing process may be reused across all appropriate documents. Properly managed and controlled, if a procedure was modified, then those modifications would automatically appear everywhere the procedure appears. Chris Beckmann describes how JetBlue defines and uses the other attributes in BlueGuru. He offers, Responsibility is the ownership role. Each piece of content has one, and only one, owner. Ownership cannot be delegated. Authority is a content modification role. Authority can be delegated. Controls are mechanisms that ensure you are doing what a process or procedure says youre going to do. Theyre our QC. On the other hand, process measurement makes sure that Controls are working. Its our QA. Interfaces are the entry and exit points where activities outside of the content interact with the activity defined in the content. For example, a part of a procedure may include a phone call to another department or a meeting that takes place in a jetway. Policies, program, processes, and procedures are our actual content, not metadata.

JBDOCSJetBlues Manuals JBDOCS As a certified air carrier, per FAA regulations, JetBlue has a manual that documented its policies and procedures. JetBlues manual is called JBDOCS. Murry explains, JBDOCS is a collection of PDFs. This is a documentation system thats manualoriented. The manuals are authored by technical writers who work in and for our operational departments. Word is their authoring tool. The departments review the writers drafts. The writers incorporate departments comments. The manuals are published as PDFs and stored in an online library from which Crewmembers access and download them. See Illustration 1.


7

BlueGuru

JBDOCS

2009 JetBlue Airways Corporation

Illustration 1. This illustration shows the JetBlues library of manuals in JBDOCS. Manually Maintained Manuals The manuals in JBDOCS are maintained manually, Murry continues. That creates significant issues. For example, findings are issues that we discover in procedures. Crewmembers find that a procedure doesnt document the way that they do their jobs, or their jobs have changed, or the manual might be in error. Authors have to modify their manuals to reflect findings, and we have to record and track findings for the FAA. JBDOCS doesnt have any of these mechanisms. Authors update their own manuals, he explains. We have no mechanism for synchronizing those updates across manuals. Thats an issue, too. For example, lets take the de-icing process again. JBDOCS doesnt manage interfaces (See ATOS Safety Attributes, above). Its up to individual authors to keep their manuals in synch when procedures are updated. Within ATOS, the FAA will audit consistency across manuals. In JBDOCS, we have no way to ensure this consistency or even to know that were consistent or not.

8


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemTime for Change Murry Christensen and his team felt that there were five key issues with JBDOCS. These issues drove JetBlue to consider the replacement of JBDOCS. Manual-oriented document system Manually-maintained document system Publishing to PDF Manual access to documents Inconsistency across manuals

Our documents must state what we do so our Crewmembers can do their jobs safely, Murry explains. Safety is our corporate obligation, and the FAA certifies us based on the documentation of our safety processes. JBDOCS, as a system of manuals, has difficulty in maintaining document integrity and consistency. We had to address those issues. Manuals are also costly to create and maintain, he goes on. The separate staff of writers and their work to extract information from subject matter experts (SMEs), to document what they extract, and then to go through an editing and approval process that involves both the writers and the SMEs is time-consuming and expensive. Low operating costs is a key element of our value proposition. JBDOCS was not a low-cost operation. In addition, we wanted the flexibility to reuse various types of content across multiple delivery mechanisms, for example, books, quick reference guides, and training content on devices as such as pilot laptops, e-readers, netbooks, and cell phones, Murry continues. Manuals cant give us this flexibility.

Requirements for a Content Management and Publishing SystemThree Sets of Requirements The five issues listed above, JetBlues management style and culture, and the content management expertise and experience of the team led what would become the BlueGuru team to develop three sets of requirements for the new documentation system. Murry calls them hard factors, soft factors, and the stuff that really matters. Lets take a closer look at each.

Hard FactorsSix Hard Factors Requirements The team identified these six requirements as hard factors: Comply with standards and regulations Future-proof solution Content ownership at lowest possible level Provide for online access Provide for offline access Regulatory review


9

BlueGuruComply with Standards and Regulations JetBlue is subject to regulation by the Department of Transportation (DOT) and its Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as well by as other governmental agencies. Its business continuity is contingent on compliance with and certification for these regulations. This hard factor is an obvious requirement. A future-proof solution carries a range of advantages and benefits. If a content management and publishing system can be designed to accommodate growth and change, then it will not have to be replaced or reengineered when business changes or when technology evolves. For example, at some point in the future, JetBlue may serve international routes. Requirements for regulatory compliance would be extended for international agencies and for the agencies of the new counties served. That the solution should be easily extensible to support these additional agencies and regulations is the meaning of this requirement. If content represents policies, programs, processes, procedures, and roles and responsibilities, then it follows that the roles responsible for defining the policies and for performing the processes and procedures should be the roles that own and control the content. Rather than having a staff of content authors and administrators, the requirement for content ownership at the lowest possible level places the responsibility for content with operational roles. This requirement also helps support JetBlues corporate strategy to be a value carrier. Content ownership at the lowest possible level results in the most efficient utilization of corporate resources, especially of staff. It also helps to ensure that the most current, highest quality information is delivered to Crewmembers. Online access to content is an obvious hard requirement in JetBlues move from static manuals to dynamic content. The roles needing online access are JetBlues Crewmembers and its partners. BlueGuru will enable JetBlues pilots to download content to their laptops and to carry just their laptops instead of those large, heavy black cases of charts and manuals. This offline access requires that JetBlue guarantee that downloaded content is the latest certified and/or compliant content available. Regulators need access to content, too. For example, an element of surveillance in ATOS is notification of and access to changes for specified safety processes. Providing online notification and access makes it easier for the FAA to learn about these changes and, where required, makes it faster to certify them. More specifically, the FAA classifies documents in these four ways: Approved FAA reviews, edits, and approves with a physical stamp on a paper document Accepted / Previewed FAA accepts that the document exists and they read through it, perhaps providing suggestions for modificationPatricia Seybold Group 2009

Future-Proof Solutions

Content Ownership at the Lowest Possible Level

Online Access

Offline Access

Regulatory Review

10

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing System Accepted / Not Previewed FAA accepts that the document exists, but they do not provide suggestions Not reviewed FAA does not receive the document and it is not necessary to notify FAA about the existence of the document

Soft FactorsToward Flexibility By soft factors, the team specified requirements that would give JetBlue flexibility in the design, implementation, application, and management of the solution. Soft factors would ensure that the new documentation system would be open, extensible, and viable beyond its initial implementation. Soft factors include: Minimal Useful Assumptions Start with minimal useful assumptions Define the problem in the broadest possible sense Dont hardwire anything you can avoid

Murry makes an analogy to the Dublin Core to describe what he means by minimal useful assumptions. Just a reminder, the Dublin Core is a metadata vocabulary of 15 terms or properties that are used for describing content or information resources. Its Dublin because it originated at a 1995 workshop in Dublin, Ohio. Its core because its elements are broad and generic, usable for describing a wide range of resources. (For those of you who want to know, the 15 terms are contributor, coverage, creator, date, description, format, identifier, language, publisher, relation, rights, source, subject, title, and type.) While there may be a point problem, dont design a point solution, Murry advises. In my experience, theres always a single, critical problem but theres also several other problems that may not be critical but are very important. For example, contrast a general content management and publishing system to a specific safety management system oversight system. Safety management is critical but content management publishing addresses safety management and can also be used to solve wide range of concerns at JetBlue, including the accurate and timely dissemination of information. Hardwiring, of course, limits the flexibility of any solution. We did not want to constrain our solution by predefining items like schema, metadata, or output, Christensen explains. Everyone dies on the taxonomy problem, trying to specify a content management systems metadata, its structure and relationships, and its use too rigidly and too early. Also, display technology is constantly changing. Our solution has to be adaptable to support content display on devices that we dont currently use and that many not yet even exist. While soft factors result in the most general and most flexible solution, generality and flexibility cause issues in the scope and schedule of system design and implementation. For example, the Dublin Core is useful for every content management system, but its usually insufficient for any specific implementation.

Define the Problem in the Broadest Possible Sense

Avoid Hardwiring


11

BlueGuru The Stuff that Really MattersFour Requirements that Really Matter The stuff that really matters comprises the four requirements that drove Murry and his team to take action to design and implement BlueGuru. Murry describes these requirements as: A Problem that Needs to Be Solved A problem that has to be solved A problem thats time-bound A problem thats clear-cut enough A current situation thats bad enough you cant just tweak it

JetBlue must comply with the regulations of government agencies in order to do business. A significant aspect of compliance is the creation, publishing, and management of the content that represents regulated processes and procedures. Content management is clearly a problem that needs to be solved. The ATOS program was initiated by the FAA in November 2007. From that date forward airlines operational documentation is required to be governed in the manner noted previously (See ATOS Safety Attributes, above.). JetBlue needed to comply with the approach to document management that is specified in ATOS. The requirement for that compliance made the problem clear-cut enough to take actions to solve. JBDOCS could not be tweaked to address the rest of the requirements for the content management and publishing system. The static and monolithic structure of its manuals; their decentralized ownership and management by a staff of authors, editors, and administrators; and the difficulty in synchronizing changes to common content across them are several of many issues that could not be addressed with tweaking. It was clear to Murry and his team that a new system was necessary.

A Time-Bound Problem A Clear-Cut Problem

A Current Situation that Couldnt Be Tweaked

BlueGuru DesignKey Components The problems with JBDOCS and the requirements for the system that would replace it were good input for the design of the new content management and publishing system. The design had these four elements: Governance Corporate Publications Tools and Architecture Document Design and Authoring

12


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing System GovernanceCrossFunctional Standards Board Murry and his team recognized that significant organizational and process change was going to be needed in order for JetBlue to move from the decentralized processes that create and manage the manuals of JBDOCS to the distributed content management and publishing system that would become known as BlueGuru. It was most important for us to do governance first, before we designed the content processes and roles, defined the architecture, or selected tools, Murry explains, We were going to make significant changes in the ways that we create, manage, and use documents, and it was crucial that we have a the means to effect those changes and ensure their adoption and institutionalization across the company. The governance structure that the team designed is a cross-functional standards board of representatives from JetBlues operational units and corporate IT. The standards board reports jointly to JetBlues safety and training departments and has dotted line responsibility for the Corporate Publications. We list its functions and responsibilities below and show it visually in Illustration 2. Sets policies and priorities Represents the voice of individual business units Provides visibility to IT and (potentially) the FAA Flows standards down to individual business units Provides oversight of Corporate Publishing


13

BlueGuru

BlueGuru Governance


Illustration 2. This illustration shows the organization structure of the governance component for BlueGuru, JetBlues new content management and publishing system.

Corporate PublicationsContent Management and Publishing Processes and Tools Corporate Publications is the organizational component of JetBlues solution. Its a new organizational unit responsible for JetBlues content management and publishing processes and the tools and technologies that support those processes. Corporate Publications reports to JetBlue University Learning Technologies, which is headed by Murry Christensen. Chris Beckmann manages the group and its staff of seven. Responsibilities include: 14

Design and maintain document creation, editing, and publishing processesPatricia Seybold Group 2009

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing System Design and maintain metadata, document types, and structure Manage and maintain the content management and publishing system Maintain central document repository and the Manual of Manuals Provide process, editorial, and technical support to operational units for document creation and editing Provide connection to JBU (JetBlue University) for developing a formal training program as an offering to all content editor Crewmembers across departmental areas.

Corporate Publications is not an operational unit. From a management perspective, its part of JetBlue University, and Chris reports to Murry. From the perspective of content management and publishing, Corporate Publishing implements and supports the policies and standards of the Standards Board, and the Standards Board provides oversight of Corporate Publications. Corporate Publications has the critical role as change agent for JetBlues move from JBDOCS to BlueGuru, for its transformation from a decentralized approach where staff writers create and manage manuals to a distributed system in which a central staff supports the authoring and editing of content by process ownersa major transformation. Chris and his team have developed a methodology to help implement that transformation. Well discuss this methodology a little later in this case study report. Note that Corporate Publications takes on the operational documentation responsibilities of Technical Publications, but does not replace the existing Technical Publications unit. Technical Publications continues to manage the aircraft maintenance and business partner responsibilities for the airline, which is a heavy load. For example, the aircraft typespecific Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) will remain the responsibility of Technical Publications.

Architecture and ToolsOffice, IE, and MarkLogic Server A combination of requirements and current tools usage drove the architecture of the content management and publishing system and of the selection of tools to support the authoring, editing, and publishing processes. The hard requirement for content ownership at lowest possible level meant that content authors would be subject matter experts within operational units, not technical writers. One of the issues with JBDOCS is the inability to reuse and manage content created for one manual in other manuals. For example, the de-icing process is owned by station ops, but its also addressed within documentation in the flight ops and technical ops areas. The old system couldnt be tweaked to support this reuse. Reuse is a stuff that really matters requirement for the new system.


15

BlueGuru Regulatory compliance and oversight surveillance require that, for many specified processes, JetBlue notify the FAA of changes and receive FAAs approval for those changes. Automated notifications and providing online access to changed content were a hard regulatory review requirement. Microsoft Word 2007 is JetBlues standard for content/document creation. Microsoft SharePoint 2007 is used in JetBlue for content maintenance, workflows, and approvals. JetBlue already had an enterprise license for MSOffice 2007. Microsoft Internet Explorer is JetBlues standard browser.

We knew that XML was the sensible base technology for our system, explains Murry Christensen. We need to support a large number of document types, and we need rich and flexible metadata to help manage the authoring, editing, and publishing processes. While we investigated a range of products including Documentum, for example, MarkLogic Server was the only XML product that we seriously considered. However, XML authoring tools were clearly too hard to learn and too hard to use for our document authors, Murry continues. Remember that these folks are the subject matter experts who own our operational processes. Theyre not technical writers or information technologists who might be interested in learning and using tools like XMetaL and ArborText. Microsoft Word was already the content/document creation tool of choice for all of JetBlue. Word 2007, the version we usethe rest of the firm is still on Office 2003lets users create XML output and supports the document metadata that we need. MS Word was an easy choice to be our authoring and editing tool. To integrate document metadata into Word and Word output into the MarkLogic Server repository, we used the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word, Chris Beckman explains. MarkLogic consultants really helped us in this area. The Toolkit extends the capabilities of Microsoft Word 2007, so that reuse can happen in a controlled manner within the authoring environment, and end users can interact with finished content from within Word directly. The Toolkit also allows us to create and manage an extensible set of metadata that can be assigned by the authors within their MS Word authoring tool. Microsoft SharePoint could provide the automated workflows and approvals that wed need for the editing and publishing processes, Murry says. While SharePoint does have some repository and collaboration capabilities, it lacks the metadata capabilities that we need for classifying our content and managing the content lifecycle. SharePoints limitations are Mark Logic Servers strengths. So we use SharePoint primarily for its workflow and version control capabilities. In addition, SharePoint is used extensively within JetBlue, so, again, we had a component that was already familiar to our editors.

16


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemHaving selected MS Word for content authoring, MS SharePoint for editing and publishing workflow, and MarkLogic Server for repository and metadata management and content lifecycle management, Murry and his team designed the new content management and publishing system of two components, the functions for which are welldescribed by their names: Content Creation and Assembly Dynamic Content Delivery

Content authors, editors, and publishers use the resources of the Content Creation and Assembly (sub)system. FAA regulators also have an interface to Content Creation and Assembly. Theyre notified when documents that need review and/or approval have been created or modified. The notifications include access credentials to view or to download those documents. JetBlues Crewmembers and business partners use the Dynamic Content Delivery (sub)system, accessing, retrieving, and using published content to perform the functions of their jobs, either online through a browser-based document viewing application or offline through the MarkLogic client. Illustration 3 shows a schematic diagram of the system. MarkLogic Server generates the Dynamic Content Delivery Web site. The need for offline access is answered by running a local version of MarkLogic server in localhost mode on the individual laptops.


17

BlueGuru

BlueGuru Architecture


Illustration 3. This illustration shows the components and interfaces of BlueGuru, JetBlues new content management and publishing system.

18


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing System BlueGuru Content Design and DevelopmentA Hierarchy of Policies, Programs, Processes, and Procedures The content of the BlueGuru repository is organized as a hierarchy of policies, programs, processes, and procedures. Policies are at the top of the hierarchy. Programs are optional. So several programs can support each policy, and several processes can support each program. At the most detailed level, several procedures, which are step-by-step instructions, can support each process. All four content types are implemented as XML documents. Theyre described below and shown in Illustration 4. Policies are directives, usually fairly brief, that state that JetBlue shall do x, y, and z. Programs, which are optional, specify the rules of engagement and the tools for implementing policies. Processes specify the who, what, when, and where for a program to work. Program documents are implemented as summaries and bullet points. Procedures are the step-by-step instructions for processes.

Every document has an owner, Chris Beckmann explains. Our document hierarchy reflects the hierarchy of our organization. Corporate owns policies, SVPs, VP, or Directors own programs, Directors or Managers own processes, and Managers or Supervisors own procedures. Further, we designed a naming system that enforces the relationships of the hierarchy, continues Chris Beckmann. Document names take the form: policy_program_process_procedure For example, within Flight Operations, a policy would be named FLT01. That policys programs would be named FLT01_01, FLT01_02, and so on. One of the programs procedures would be named FLT01_02_01, FLT01_02_02, and so you. You get the picture. This approach to naming makes it easier for SME document owners to organize and create documents, for Corporate Publications to manage the repository, and easier for the FAA to regulate and oversee JetBlues operational management systems. Significantly, the hierarchical naming makes it easier for Crewmembers, the users of the documents, to find the content that describes the work that they have to perform and for new Crewmembers to learn their jobs and see how their jobs fit within JetBlues mission.


19

BlueGuru

A Pyramid of Policies, Programs, Procedures, and Processes


Illustration 4. This illustration shows the hierarchy or pyramid of documents in the BlueGuru repository, their owners, and the format of their names. Template-Based Content Creation Chris and his team designed and developed a set of templates to help SMEs create documents. We have a template for each type of document in our repository, he explains. The home page on the Content Manager (SharePoint) site presents a list of templates. Authors select the template for the type of document that they want to create. Their selection then displays a form that guides them through specifying the metadata for the document. The metadata properties for procedure documents are listed below. Illustration 5 shows this form for an example of a procedure document. 20

Content Number Initiator (Regulatory or JetBlue Best Practices) Viewing Restrictions FAA Classification Stations Departments Issue Date Effective Date Expiration Date Standards Compliances Review Schedule Classroom, Online, or On the Job Training Required Qualifications or Certifications Records ProducedPatricia Seybold Group 2009

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing System

Template-Based Metadata


Illustration 5. This illustration shows the form into which document authors enter values for a documents metadata. The forms are document-type specific. BlueGuru displays this for when content authors select a template. Chris explains, The metadata inherits downward through the hierarchy of policies, programs, processes, and procedures. So, for example, the processes that fall under a program are assigned the metadata of the program and of the policy to which the program belongs. Also, each piece of content addresses the ATOS safety attributes, whether the information is metadata or information that is embedded in the content itself. For example, we would include the number of the actual ATOS SAI number in the metadata, but include Authority, Responsibility, Interface, Control, and Process Measurement information in the actual content itself. Our Content Editing application is a Web-based toolset with a tabbed display. The tabs are Metadata, Search, and Impact, Chris explains. When an individual is building a deliverable, they use the Search tab to search for content. The Search capability is a full-


21

BlueGurutext search that finds content approved and stored in the repository. A list of found content displays below the Search criteria area, and an individual just clicks to add a reference the content to the deliverable. The content displays in the deliverable, but is not editable in the deliverable, since the content is actually inserted into the deliverable by reference only. As part of the implementation, a tab separate from the Metadata tab, the Impact tab, helps us keep track of all of the deliverables in which the piece of content is being used. And, for deliverables, we have a Ref Docs tab that helps us keep track of all of the pieces of content in the deliverable itself. Illustration 6 shows the Impact tab of the Content Editing application workspace.

Content Editing Impact Tab


Illustration 6. This illustration shows the tools of the Impact tab of the Content Editing application. Authoring Methodology BlueGuru represents a new and different approach to documentation at JetBlue. Coming from a system of manuals created and managed by writers to documents created by operational personnel is a major change. Chris Beckmann and his team have developed a methodology to ease the transition. Its hard to get people to think about a hierarchy of related content with each piece of content having an owner, Chris explains. My team has been meeting with each group that will be creating documents. We take them through an exercise that describes the documents, their relationships, and their ownership in terms of a pyramid. The pyramid has layers that correspond to the levels of the repository hierarchy: policies, programs, processes, and procedures.

22


JetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemWe explain that someone must own each layer and each document within the layer. The exercise has uncovered many issues in responsibility and ownership. Weve discovered some processes with no owners and some with multiple owners. These issues naturally escalate until the tough questions are answered and the issues are resolved. The pyramid exercise results in identifying a policy and its programs, processes, and procedures. That gives us enough information to specify the metadata for the associated documents. Our next step is doing business process mapping with the SME teams to begin to flesh out the content of the documents. We also use the old manuals and other content sources (rogue documents, SharePoint content, PPT presentations, etc.) as a source for document content. After the pyramid and business process mapping exercises, the SMEs have enough to create their documents, Chris continues. We provide one-to-one coaching and support to authors during content creation and we also edit their work, as necessary, before the content is published. At the end of the day, the individual content owners own the pieces of content, but Corporate Publications owns and manages how the content is delivered (manuals, quick reference guides, and content in other forms). Our experience so far is that weve done the heavy lifting with the pyramid exercise, business process mapping, and one-to-one support for procedure authoring. Going forward were aiming for both content owners and Corporate Publications staff to be in a maintenance mode.

ConclusionBlueGuru Status As we publish this case study report in April 2009, Corporate Publications and IT are putting BlueGuru through final acceptance testing. Following final acceptance testing, well move our applications and our backlog of new content to our production infrastructure, explains Murry. We have a large backlog of new content ready to be used in the new system. Weve been authoring and editing it in parallel with the software development of our new applications. Well be able to load it into MarkLogic Server repository in the Content Editing application. However, before we can begin serving content to frontline Crewmembers, the FAA will conduct a review of the live content to validate the integrity of the end product. Weve completed a fair amount of content development, continues Chris. At cutover, well be loading hundreds of pieces of content into the production system. In addition, we will have more than 100 content owners who have been trained in our methodology and have used it to author and edit this content. Going forward, the growth in the volume of our content will be determined by the number and level of detail required for additional procedures. Plans for BlueGuru Corporate Publications is beginning to plan the next version of BlueGuru. Wed like to be able to publish content to alternative delivery devices including cell phones, e-readers, and netbooks, Murry adds, Were exploring linking BlueGuru with our learning23


BlueGurumanagement systems. After all, we are part of Learning Technologies for a reason. Were also looking at expanding the content owners beyond the ATOS/operational documentation universe to include other owners of structured contentContracts, People (Human Resources), Business Continuity, for example. Critical Success Factors BlueGuru represents the beginning of JetBlues transformation from using manuals to using a content management and publishing system to run its business. Murry Christensen and his team identified and discussed these critical success factors in BlueGurus design, development, and implementation. Recognizing the Need to Replace Manuals Recognizing the need to replace manuals General design approach JetBlue management ATOS Standards board Evangelism, IT involvement, luck

Issues in creating, editing, and using manuals drove JetBlue to develop BlueGuru to, replace JBDOCS, the manually maintained manual system. These issues included: JBDOCS manuals had issues in maintaining document integrity and consistency. Manuals are also costly to create and maintain. Low operating costs is a key element of JetBlues value proposition. JBDOCS was not a low-cost operation. Manuals lack the flexibility to reuse various types of content across multiple delivery mechanisms.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a General Approach

The way we approached led us to not make hard decision decisions that would have been made in a conventional software project, Murry Christensen explains. We didnt just throw technology at the problem. We kept the specification very general. Inevitably, we had scope creep and budget and schedule overruns, continues Murry Christensen. For example, somewhat late in the game, we decided to add additional metadata related to training usage and connection to our new Balanced Scorecard system. Also, we didnt understand the implications of our design approach on the development and implementation of the new system. We couldnt anticipate the impact of interactions between and among the key technologies that we selectedMS Word, SharePoint, and MarkLogic Server. These interactions caused development iterations that caused some overruns. Given our general approach, I probably should have expected these ambiguities and overruns and provided more contingencies than we did. However, I wouldnt change our design approach. We have a really good end result.

Governance Structure Is a Knifepoint for Success24

Overall, we were radically right in our implementation approach, offers Murry Christensen. We created the governance structure before we deployed the solution. Governance really matters. It feels bureaucratic within the JetBlue culture, but it has been our knifepoint for success. It was critically important to do governance first.Patricia Seybold Group 2009

JetBlues Content Management and Publishing SystemChris Beckmann continues, Our Standards Board speaks to and for our organization. With representation from all of our operational units as well as from IT, it has been the mechanism to get change to happen. In fact, our governance structure was easy to put in place, adds Murry. With the ATOS requirement, we had a very big hammer. More than that, we have very smart management. They saw that the governance structure was the key to transformation. Involvement of Mark Logic, IT and Luck The technological aspects of BlueGuru development and implementation have gone very smoothly, Murry Christensen says. While Word and SharePoint were IT standards at JetBlue, MarkLogic Server was an essential component that, for us, was a complex, new technology. Mark Logics staff has been very helpful throughout the project, training us and helping us with design, development, and implementation. We could never have designed and built the Word add-in that integrates with MarkLogic Server on our ownand thats a critical piece of the solution. Our IT department has also been instrumental to the projects success. We have a good relationship with IT, and they were included from the start. IT is also a key representative on the Standards Board. We also got lucky. It was a fortunate coincidence that Word 2007 delivered XML support that, along with the MarkLogic Toolkit for Word, made integration with MarkLogic Server feasible. Without XML support in Word and without a native XML server like MarkLogic Server, our system would absolutely have been much more complex. The match between our needs and the available XML technology was fortuitous and simplified things quite a lot. Major Change Is Always Difficult Its been tough for our Crewmembers to get out of the mind-set of manuals-based documentation, Murry says. Major change is always difficult, and weve had some resistance to the changes resulting from our new approach to documentation. Folks go back to books as a reaction when things get difficult, expands Chris Beckmann. We have to find a way to change the way they think about accessing workbased information. BlueGurus context is different from what theyre used to seeing. Theres a natural tendency to cling to what you know, which, in our case, is book-based knowledge. Its funny. BlueGuru has been as much about social engineering as it has about software engineering. Many of our Crewmembers have embraced the new system, Murry counters. The SMEs that got it early have become evangelists for BlueGuru, informally promoting the system internally and helping with supporting and coaching. We knew that the organization ran on structured content, Murry Christensen concludes. So, weve been confident that our approach to operational content as a hierarchy of items with rich and flexible metadata would be an effective solution. BlueGuru applies excellent technologies to create and manage documents that describe the way that our Crewmembers do their work. The new approach is so much better than the old manuals,Patricia Seybold Group 2009 25

BlueGurubetter for our company and better for our people. Our documentation management processes are already much more effective and much more efficient than before. Consistently putting the focus on the work rather than documents has been a bit of a revelation for all of us.

26


MarkLogic at JetBlue Cast Study: Blue Guru CMS

Documents

Transcript of MarkLogic at JetBlue Cast Study: Blue Guru CMS