DCL Learning Series

[This session appeared in DCL's DITA Day 2021.]

Brian Trombley

It's my pleasure now to introduce Jonathan Chandler. And I met Jonathan a few years ago at one of the DITA conferences. And we got talking about their move to DITA, and Harmonizer too, and those sorts of things. And Jonathan and his team were building a case to move to DITA. And so, he's going to share a little bit about his experience. Jonathan is part of Intralox; they're a company that makes a conveyor systems for a variety of industries, moving product and packaging, and things to be filled with things around various factories and stuff. I'll let him talk to that. But, again, it's my pleasure to introduce Jonathan from Intralox. And over to you, Jonathan, thank you.

Jonathan Chandler

Thank you, Brian. Hello everybody. Can you hear me all right? ...I'll take that as a yes.

Shannon McCue

Yes.

Marianne Calilhanna

Yes, we can. You sound perfectly clear.

Jonathan Chandler

I can see no faces, so I'm just going to roll with it. Thank you all for having me here today; I really appreciate it. And Shannon, I joined the meeting about halfway through your presentation, so I'm sorry I missed it, but I found myself nodding in agreement to a lot of the things that you had to share. 

Shannon McCue

Thank you. 

Jonathan Chandler

Yeah. So it's good to hear that our experiences are similar. And hello to everybody else. My name is Jonathan Chandler. I'm glad to be here today and join the conversation. Brian and Marianne reached out to me and asked if I would be available to come talk today to share our experience with our move, migration from unstructured documentation over to DITA. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to run through, give you a brief background, and then I'll jump into some suggestions, some things that we learned along the way, and some things that I think contributed to our success. So, let me jump in. Here we go. All right so, like I said, my name is Jonathan Chandler. I'm the supervisor of the technical communications group at Intralox. Intralox, as Brian mentioned, is the world leader in modern conveyance solutions. 

So, we produce conveyor belts for every industry across the board. And we also produce a whole line of conveyor systems and individual conveyors that we sell to various industries. A large segment of our business is devoted to the logistics and kind of package handling business. So, places like FedEx, Amazon, UPS. We also offer a host of services and trainings all centered around conveyance solutions. We're a global company. We are based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and we've got about 2,500 employees worldwide. We can jump onto the next slide, please. Perfect, thank you. So, for me, I've been at Intralox for almost 14 years now. I started as a tech writer on the internal side, writing manufacturing documentation, maintenance manuals, operation manuals. Moved over to the commercial side and started handling our big commercial tech docs. And, in 2018, I campaigned and kind of pushed management to consolidate our tech writers.

Before, up to that point, we had been hiring writers and they were kind of designated or segregated or in different areas of the company. And so, I pushed for bringing us all together under one roof to get consistency, standardization, leveraging of best practices and tools, all that good stuff. So, we formed in 2018 and I've been the supervisor of that group since then. We started with about six team members: about four writers, myself and a project manager. And we've grown to about, I think today we have twelve writers.

4:00

We also have a CCMS admin, and a project coordinator, and myself. So my group, what we do is we produce internal and customer-facing tech content ranging from some of the things I mentioned, maintenance manuals, to product literature, to user manuals for those conveyors that we sell, design guidelines, internal specs, policies, procedures, all the wonderful tech content we all know and love.

 

We deliver our stuff in PDF and print right now. And, on the commercial side, we support about 10 languages as a standard with support for other languages as needed. Tools, I thought this might be of value to the conversation today. So, the tools that we use Tridion Docs is our CCMS; our writers author content in Oxygen. And we also use Acrolinx to manage terminology and help guide grammar style, tone of voice, branding, that kind of thing. And we've also incorporated Acrolinx into our Tridion workflows so that we get checks of content. It meets a minimum level of quality before we release it. So, as I mentioned, my group formed in 2018 and that year is the same year that we kicked off this implementation of DITA. So we'd been in there about two and a half years since starting in 2018. 2019 was really the first full year we were in DITA. So, that gives you some background.

And now I'll just jump into suggestions, things that we learned. So, the first one that I'll tell you: start now, you don't need to wait. You don't need structure as in the tools to start structuring and standardizing your content. What I'm talking about here is really content strategy. That is really independent of the tools and it's never a bad idea to get going on that. For us, I think this was a big key in our success and the speed with which we were able to move from implementation into production, into actual project work. Before Tridion or Oxygen DITA was even really on the roadmap, we started standardizing our content and working with just one of our products, these user manuals that we provide for our conveyors. And we broke that thing down completely and standardized the chapters, the introductions to the chapters, what procedures looked like, what concepts looked like, boiler plate texts. How we did special notes, how we handled our safety information, how we handled images and call-outs in images, figure descriptions.

As much as we could, we standardized it across the board. We also went about looking at our content and trying to find opportunities to reuse information. So, taking content that we had and making it more general, less specific and more applicable. In doing all that early on independent, outside of the perspective of Tridion, or Oxygen, or a specific set of tools, that got us a lot further on. So, that when it came time to do the implementation, when it came time to convert our content with DCL, or run Harmonizer on our content, we were in a much better place. And so, we were able to get through that whole implementation quicker. So, standards, looking at reuse strategies in whatever your environment is currently, it's never a waste of time. Next slide, please. All right, the next one, set yourself up to succeed. The first part of this for us and what we did was we got help.

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We hired experts, we talked to consultants. Obviously, we're all here today, so there's a lot of experience, a lot of help in this room, this virtual room. But, for us, this was another key component of our success. We worked with Content Rules to walk us through the content strategy, and they helped us with all of the parts: the product models, the taxonomy, and metadata, the structured authoring, what else? The workflow. All of those key components, Content Rules helped us figure all that stuff out. Obviously, there's a cost associated with it, but in my opinion, in my experience, the money that was spent on there was worth as much as the tools and the systems that we are investing in. I think that really helped us get further along because, I mean, we didn't know what we didn't know. But there were people out there that did know, so we hired those people.

The next part is really, if you can, keep it as simple as possible. If you can avoid, like, strict deadlines, if you can avoid big, complicated projects that have 50 stakeholders save those projects for later, after you're stood up and you're running. And when you're designing your system and you're planning how your stuff's going to look and how you're going to work, solve for the majority, aim for like roughly right, hit that 80/20. All projects are going to have their unique characteristics. They're all going to have those quirks. When you're looking at how you're going to work in this new environment, solve for most of the time, what you want to achieve most of the time. And understand that you'll handle those one-offs as needed.

And the last part, until you're up and running, if you have content, you have projects where you got to hit a deadline, a critical date you need to deliver, have a backup plan for how you're going to get that work done and how you're going to get it out the door. This saved us. Our first project was really easy, those user manuals that I mentioned, they went really smoothly. Our second project was pretty much the opposite and we had strict deadlines. It was complex, it was old content. We set up a backup plan and we were able to revert and deliver that content in the old FrameMaker system that first year, because we just couldn't get it done in our new environment. And that saved us. So, really plan ahead, set yourself up to succeed. All right, next slide. Here we go.

 

All right, so, this question of "Does it have to?" When you're looking at your outputs, when you're trying to figure out what your content's going to look like, what your deliverables are going to be, how you're going to structure it, ask yourself this question of "Does it have to?" Instead of falling back, or defaulting to kind of the way you had it, frame your perspective and anchor your focus on where you want to go rather than what you did before. For us, when we were able to take a step back and say "Let's look at what's the best use of this content. What are we trying to achieve here?," not just, well, this is what it looked like before. Let's copy it. Let's do it again, just in DITA. When we were able to take that step back, we found improvements. We made a lot of headway, made efficiency gains. When we just defaulted to "Well, this is what it was like, so this is what people expect, this is what we're gonna make it look like," we ran into trouble.

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You know, we had to go back and do rework. So, design around principles, where you want to go, rather than what you had. Just don't take everything with you into this new environment. I think a good analogy is like when you move. So, moving is never fun, it's not an enjoyable thing. But the one thing that it does give you is an opportunity to kind of take stock of what you have. I don't know about you, but I'd never, like, pack up everything blindly and just take it all with me. When you pack your things, you go through and you see what do you have? What's benefiting you? What doesn't work for you? Do you need a panini maker and a grilled cheese machine? Probably not. So, you get rid of one, you donate it, give it to somebody who can use it. You take what's valuable, what serves you, what works, to your new place. So, think about it kind of the same way: "Does it have to?"

All right, we can move along. All right, this part: make it collaborative, make this thing a team effort. Like I mentioned, we kicked this project off in 2018 and it was the same year that the group kind of formed together. And as part of the content strategy work that we did, we had a series of workshops, and we were able to get everybody together, and go through all of these main components. The product models, the workflow, taxonomy, metadata work, all that good stuff. And it gave the team an opportunity to bond, to come together. It also gave each of the team members a feeling of ownership and involvement and a voice in the direction we were going. You know? My team, everybody was on board about moving to DITA. Everybody understood the benefits. But this was an opportunity for them to have a say in what we were building.

 

They were going to be working in this environment every day. Personally, I would rather give people the chance upfront to have some sort of involvement in the decisions being made, and where they're going to live. So, for us, that was very beneficial. Also, I don't know if anyone's told you, but there's a lot of work involved. There's a lot of tasks involved in moving to DITA, migrating content. Delegate that work. Give people roles, responsibilities. You've got UAT, you've got prepping files for conversion, you've got the image file work that you have to do. Metadata you got to tag content with. There's tasks, give people an opportunity to own some of that work. It gives them a chance to build some skill. And it's like letting everybody build a little bit of it. So, really, yeah. Involve the whole team.

 

The other part of this, I think, is to think holistically in the sense of, don't, when you're designing systems, when you're looking at taxonomy, metadata, don't design your stuff in a vacuum. As an example, when it came time to figure out our taxonomy and metadata, what we did was we took kind of an inventory of all the enterprise systems that had some sort of system of classification. And we tried to set up Tridion Docs to be encompassing of all those, you know. 

15:56

So, rather than building a separate, this other silo, we always talk about, like, breaking down silos, content silos, and democratizing content, and all that stuff. And I love it, it's great. This is an opportunity to really live up to that. When you're designing your systems, take a look at what's already out there and try to integrate what you're building, as opposed to just building another silo, you know.

For us, I think this really helped. It gave people outside of our group an opportunity to see what we were doing. And it allowed us to build a system that we were able to expand upon, we were able to grow it. That was one thing that I heard Shannon say, give it the opportunity and the space to grow because it's going to grow. I mean, from where we were when we started to where we are today, it grows. So, think holistically, look for long-term.

I'm making really good time. So, we can go on to the next slide. All right, so my last tip I'm going to give you is to communicate early and often. Most importantly, I think, communicate with your team. Talk to them, be honest about the changes that are coming, not just about the things that they're going to gain, and the time savings, and the reuse opportunities, and all of that stuff, but what they're not going to be able to do anymore either. They're not going to be able to just create paragraph styles on a whim, or change font sizes. That they're going to have to follow a standard workflow. That they're going to have to tag content with metadata, all of that stuff.

Be realistic; set them up to know what's coming for them. And then, check in with them, check in regularly, see how things are going. For us, we, so 2019, 2020 we were solidly in Tridion, working in DITA. And this year, my goal has been all about efficiency gains. There's still things that we have to do within DITA and within Tridion, there's still some manual work. Button clicks, like points of contact that can be automated. That my goal is to fix some of those things, improve them, gain some efficiencies. But I was only able to figure out what those were by checking in regularly with the writers. Seeing what works, what doesn't work, what's a pain. So, really talk to your team. For your stakeholders and the people who consume your content, your SMEs, those kinds of folks, the people use what you produce, talk to them early, avoid surprises. Let them know about changes before they see the changes.

For us, once we got to the outputs, once we finished those what it meant was that the publications that some people were used to seeing looked a little different. They're not going to convert and they're not going to output. It's not going to look exactly the same as it did in FrameMaker, or Word, or InDesign, or wherever you're working. If there are changes, let people know about them before they see them. So, for me, what I did was I was very intentional. I sent out kind of a series of emails before, and just to tell people "Hey, we've been working on this stuff in the background. This is what we've been doing. We're about to release this big publication. When it comes out, you might notice these things. Let me tell you why," and real high-level but "Let me tell you why they look differently. Let me tell you what we gain by doing it," you know?

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"So, we took away a couple of things. We added a couple of things. But this is the benefit, this is where we're going." From my experience, when we set people up and told them beforehand about those changes, I got less feedback on Where did it go? What'd you do? Why'd you do this? So, avoid the surprises. And then, the last one is: brag. When you can, tell people about the successes. First off, tell your team, share with them the gains. When you start realizing the translation costs, improvements and the productivity, and how many projects you're getting done, those improvements in content quality and reuse, share that stuff with your team so they know that the work that they're doing is valuable and that it's paying off. That goes a long way.

And then, also share it with the people that helped you purchase your systems. So, your champions, the upper management, whoever you went to, to go to bat for you and to kind of campaign to help you get what you have. Share that stuff with them, so they know that what they believed in and what they bought is working. So, in the spirit of bragging, not really, but I want to give you some real numbers to kind of show you realistically where we are today. So, in the next slide, what I did here is I've got some numbers for you. These three slides, or graphs all come from translation projects. So, this is related to our commercial side of tech docs. So, these are all numbers that generated from translation projects we did. So, looking at 2018, that was really, you could consider that pre-DITA. So, in 2018, we did 66 total projects. Moving forward, 2020 we doubled that, so that's pretty cool.

 

The next one, that DTP Spend, so in 2018, pre-DITA, we were spending 167 grand on just the desktop publishing portion of translations. Now, one of the big selling points and the things that we kind of reiterated in our promotion of DITA was that DTP spend goes away with DITA. So, from 167 grand in 2018, down to 8500 in 2020, that's cool. And then, looking at our total spend 2018, we were spending almost half a million on translation costs just from my group. And before that, that number had just been steadily rising every year. So, within two years, we've dropped that down from 469 to 271, so that's $200,000 we've saved just in the span of two years. Projects, the number of projects are going up, costs are going down, that's a success.

So, that's it. Hopefully, what I've shared with you today is helpful. I wanted to get done in enough time for questions. So, thank you all. If you have any questions, please. 

Marianne Calilhanna

We do have some questions, Jonathan. That was fantastic. 

Jonathan Chandler

Thank you.

Marianne Calilhanna

Numbers don't lie. Those tell us an incredible story. Thank you for sharing with us. 

Jonathan Chandler

Thank you. 

Marianne Calilhanna

So, one question came in, "How did you record your reuse strategy before using the tools?" Can you tell us what you did there? 

23:58

Jonathan Chandler

Sure. So, our conveyor manuals, and I apologize; there's a vacuum going on in the background; I don't know if you can hear it. But our user manuals for our conveyors, they share a lot of similar content. So, what we did was we were working in InDesign. So, we created chapters, InDesign files for each chapter, and put all of the standard content within those chapters. And then, it was still manual work, but we had the team that was devoted to that work, we had just developed this kind of system that they understood about how to go about copying and pasting that content, and putting it into their specific manuals that they needed. So, there was still some custom content that was needed, but largely things like introductions, equipment overviews, concepts, those kinds of things, and standard topics, procedures, those things were all kind of in the template.

So, they had this outline for what to include, what to follow, and then they filled in the gaps with those specific bits of content. We also did things where if we had a procedure that was used across different conveyors, and maybe the belt on the conveyor looked a little bit different, we would still use that procedure, but we would just indicate "Hey, your belt may look slightly different than what we have here. It's still applicable." It was rudimentary, but it got the job done and it kind of set the path for where we were going.

Marianne Calilhanna

You kept it simple. Who did you consult with to build the rules? How did you find the people who know this? 

Jonathan Chandler

To build the rules of our content strategy? 

Marianne Calilhanna

Yes. 

Jonathan Chandler

Yeah so, we worked with Content Rules to do our content strategy. The work that we did beforehand, before Content Rules and before Tridion, I did that myself. And I didn't realize what content strategy was, I really didn't. I was just trying to find some improvements. So, Tridion, or, Content Rules took us to the next level. And they really took this idea that I had and matured it. So, Content Rules was a key component of our success. DCL was in there too, I mean, Harmonizer, converting content.

Marianne Calilhanna

Have your customers reported any differences in the technical information they receive from Intralox?

Jonathan Chandler

I wish I had better information about that. So, our connection to the end user is still fragmented, you know. A large portion of our content is consumed internally by our account managers, our sales reps, our field service, those kinds of folks. The feedback from them is that "You're doing great. It looks good." I want more details, so I'm working towards that. But as far as our end users, I'm still trying to figure out the best path forward to get feedback on the everyday user.

Marianne Calilhanna

All right, Jonathan, thank you so much. Thank you again.

Jonathan Chandler

Thank you.