"Adobe Day" presenter, Mark Lewis, contrasts traditional productivity (pages per day) metrics with new metrics and metrics critical to project success. His research reveals how to determine the true cost of a DITA task or topic, and also how that cost is reduced over time with constant re-use. Many concepts shared may be found in Mark's new book (published by the Rockley Group): "DITA Metrics 101: The Business Case for XML and Intelligent Content".

1. Adobe Day
STC Summit 2013
Mark Lewis

2. Tech Writer, Content Strategist, DITA Educator
STC Summit 2012 – 2013 Track Manager
– Content Strategy and Design
Past Co-Chair:
Oasis DITA for the Web SC
Manager:
DITA Metrics group on Linked In

3. It’s about metrics
white papers
discussions
webinar recordings
Thought leaders

4. DITA 101 2nd edition
“Fundamentals of DITA for
Authors and Managers”
By the Rockley Group
with Mark Lewis
 For sale at LuLu.com

5. Managing Enterprise Content: A
Unified Content Strategy
2nd edition
By Ann Rockley
& Charles Cooper
 For sale at Amazon.com

6. Book & Spreadsheets
Published by
The Rockley Group

7. Society for Technical Communication (STC)
Content Strategy, Information Architecture, ROI & Business Value are hot topics.
Content Strategy applies to the Enterprise not just
Tech Pubs.
Enterprise Content Strategy

8.  Traditional metrics
 Tour de new Metrics
 Metrics for project success
Agenda
content
reuse
Emphasis on
XML

9. Cost of a page*
*Lasecke, Joyce. “Stop Guesstimating, Start Estimating. In Intercom, February
2006 issue, Society for Technical Communication

10. Cost of a Project
“Project plan with all:
 research,
 development,
 review, production,
 publishing,
 project management,
 training tasks, etc. associated with the project.”
No reuse

11. The measure of an author or authoring
team
 Pages per month
 Pages per publication
 Publications per month
More is
better
No reuse

12. Just enough DITA
 Task
 Procedures, How To
 Concept
 Descriptions, Overviews, Definitions
 Reference
 API, SDK

13. Cost of a
DITA Task Topic
Topic-level

14. Cost of a
DITA Task Topic Topic
1
Topic
2
Topic
3
Referenced
Topic
Sim Products
Writing for
Reuse factor

15. Cost of a
DITA Task Topic

16. Similar Products

17. Content Components –
More Granular
Component-
level

18. Content Components
Measure of an author Topic
1
Topic
2
Topic
3
Referenced
Component
# of pages
vs. amount of
reusable
content

19.  Perceived value of documentation as a percentage
of the price of the product
 Cost of documentation as a percentage of R&D
 Mark Hoeber: GA: “what does a metric really mean”
 # page views per visit
 Be careful of “metrics in isolation”

20.  “Measuring Productivity”
 STC Intercom mag
 By Pam Swanwick and
 Juliet Wells Leckenby
 (# topics or pages) × (complexity of deliverable) ×
(% of change) + (% time spent on special projects) ×
(job grade)

21.  “Developing Metrics to Justify Resources”
 CIDM Newsletter
 By Don Rohmer and Archana Maheshwari
 Projecting future needs
 Compared to industry standards
 “5 writers did the work of (industry standard) 6.4
writers”

22. *Keith Schingili Roberts

23. *Keith Schingili Roberts

28.  text

29.  text

30.  Who are the players?
 Executives and stakeholders
 Product managers
 Project managers
 Engineers, QA
 SMEs
 What info do they need to get their job done?
 If you help them succeed, they’ll help you
 Ensure project success, defeat the dragon
Support
others and
they’ll
support you
intersect

32.  cost of a topic / effort
 topic types
 Task
 Concept
 Reference
 cost of project

33.  cost of project
 accurate estimate

34. Without
Reuse
With
Reuse

39. Corporate Goals
Main categories:
Increase revenue
Reduce costs
Process improvement and automation
Risk mitigation
Handout

40. Reduce costs
Reduce development cost
Reduce translation cost
Reduce call center cost
Reduce product returns
Process improvement and automation
Reuse of honed processes
Risk mitigation
Increase quality
Improve governance
Minimize branding damage
Shown CS to
Exec
Did you
know corp
goals?
Stories?
Resistance?

41. Increase revenue
Sales team
Improve prospect engagement
More accurate information
Faster and easier access to information
Reduce learning time
Shorten sales cycles
Reduce time to market
For local products
For translated products
Improve branding
Smartphone
catch up
All

42. Percent reuse
Topic
1
Topic
2
Topic
3
Referenced
Component

43. Without
Reuse
With
Reuse
Reduced time to marketProject-level

44.  Show alignment of content
strategy to corporate goals
 Prove support of corporate goals
 Support executives and they’ll
support you
Support
executives
and they’ll
support you
Aligning CS
& CG

46. Mark Lewis
mlewis@quark.com
mlewis@ditametrics.com

47. Book & Spreadsheets
Published by
The Rockley Group