Understanding and Communicating the Financial Impact of XML & DITA
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Transcript of Understanding and Communicating the Financial Impact of XML & DITA
© 2006 JustSystems Inc.
Understanding and Communicatingthe Financial Impact of XML & DITA
Amber Swope
October 19, 2007
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Introduction
• Amber Swope– Principal Consultant, JustSystems, Inc. – 18+ years of experience in the industry at multiple
companies of varying sizes and industries– Supported information developers producing DITA
content in Rational group at IBM– Author of numerous papers/presentations on
information development and information architecture
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Agenda
• Introduction
• The Ripple Effect
• Building your case– Step One: Choose and Evangelize Information Model
– Step Two: Translate Impact of Right Translation Workflow
– Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
– Step Four: Select Technology Partners Who Facilitate ROI
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Polling
How many languages do you translate your content into?
• Only use 1 language
• 2 – 5 languages
• 6 – 10 languages
• 11 – 20 languages
• 21 – 30 languages
• 31+ languages
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
The Ripple EffectHow Global Targets Inflate Content Volume
Market Expansion Scenario:
BestBet DVD Players Expands Sales to Five European Countries
* 5 new countries requires 5 times the amount of work in creating, translating and delivering all the information necessary to support sales, marketing and service activities
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
The Ripple EffectHow Global Targets Inflate Content Volume
• Adapting to a much larger mandate also requires the need to understand and communicate the implications, limitations and suitability of:
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Polling
How familiar are you with DITA?
• First time learning about it
• Somewhat familiar, heard about it
• Familiar with it or researching
• Very knowledgeable
• Already implemented
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step One: Choose and Evangelize your Information Model
DITA: Darwin Information Typing Architecture
• XML-based technology foundation that controls and manages creation, translation, workflow, and publishing of content
• Popular information model in today’s global, multi-channel environment
• Breaks down and structures info into reusable modules
• Identifies relationships between info ‘topics’ and ‘maps’
Eliminates redundancy of effort
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
* Organizations save 40-70% or more in documentation and localization costs
Step One: Choose and Evangelize your Information Model
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Example:
• A manufacturing company recently adopted DITA after a global expansion required translation to 14 new languages
• During pilot project (which encompassed just one set of documentation), the company measured savings of more than $225,000 within the first three months
• Today the company produces dozens of documentation sets in more than 20 languages
Step One: Choose and Evangelize your Information Model
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Polling
How are you currently translating your documents?
• I currently translate by whole documents
• I have adopted an XML strategy to translate documents in parts
• I’m not sure
• Not applicable
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
• Traditionally, TM tools send entire documents through translation process – including already translated content
• Also need to find best point to translate along the content lifecycle– If too early: Waste– If too late: Jeopardize deadlines
• BUT – When topic-by-topic vs. whole documents:
DITA introduces Flexibility
Step Two: Translate Impact of the Right Translation Workflow
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Two: Translate Impact of the Right Translation Workflow
Consider the following scenario:
Product Guide 125 pre-existing topics
+ 75 new topics
= 200 topics
Without DITA With DITA
200 topics for translation
Several thousand dollars to proof & match topics that have not
changed
75 topics for translation
Since 125 are easily reused, costs reduced by over 60%
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Two: Translate Impact of the Right Translation Workflow
Savings at Every Step: Global Content Creation with DITA
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Polling
What metrics do you currently track?• Number of hours authors actually write per week• Number of hours to write a topic or page• Number of hours to write a topic by type• Number of hours to review a topic• Number of hours to translate a topic• Number of test/review a deliverable• Number of days per language to translate
deliverables per product for a release
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
Also consider the following factors which impact explicit costs:
• Direct labor hours per page
• Cost per art file
• % of content rewritten before release of First Edition (revision / churn rate)
• % of new content in future revisions / variants (carry-forward reuse rate)
• Number of expected future product revisions / variants
• % chance to reuse content from this document across other products
• % chance to reuse content from this document across other documents for this product
• Current reuse rate achieved on iterations (before)
• Number of output formats
• Cost for file pre- and post-processing
• DTP cost per translated document
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
* The same document that cost $6,000 per language to translate with a whole-document, non-TM approach will cost approximately $1,000 per language using DITA
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
Now consider:
10 documents delivered in 10 languages
• Annual savings of $500,000 on just one documentation set
Under Old Method With DITA strategy and TM
Annual Translation costs
$600,000
(10 documents x 10 languages x $6,000 per language)
Annual Translation costs
$100,000
(10 documents x 10 languages x $1000 per language)
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Four: Select Technology Partners Who Facilitate ROI
• Unified content development environment (UCDE) contains multiple applications
• Applications must integrate to provide seamless workflow
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Four: Content Authoring
• Provides intuitive GUI for authoring topics
• Provides ability to organize topics with DITA maps
• Supports creating relationship tables
• Validates DITA topics
• Has a customizable GUI
• Able to integrate with other applications in UCDE
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Four: Content Storage
• CMS – workflow and metadata support (aids in reuse)
• Source Control – file integrity support
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Four: Content Publishing
• Generates DITA topics into deliverables
• Server and desktop support
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Step Four: Content Translation
• Manages translation workflow
• Manages translation memory (TM)
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Summary
• Understand how translation affects content development and production
• Build your case for moving to DITA– Step One: Choose and Evangelize Information
Model
– Step Two: Translate Impact of Right Translation Workflow
– Step Three: Calculate Measurable ROI
– Step Four: Select Technology Partners Who Facilitate ROI
© 2007 JustSystems Inc.
Resources
• http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users
• http://dita.xml.org
• http://na.justsystems.com– White papers– Webinars– Flash demonstrations