Did DITA Cross the Chasm?

Did DITA Cross the Chasm?
DITA in the light of the technology adoption life cycle: Just hype or ready for you?
by G. H. Krause, Senior Manager TechDoc

Copyright © Qimonda AG 2006. All rights reserved.
Qimonda_ghk_rev111.pot
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2006-07-03 Page 2
We Are A Top 3 Global DRAM Manufacturer*
•
NYSE listed since August 9, 2006
•
13,000 employees globally
•
R&D operations in 8 locations on three continents
•
Manufacturing facilities in Europe, North America and Asia
•
Broad and growing range of DRAM products for infrastructure, graphics, mobile and consumer applications
•
Standard DRAMs for use in PCs and workstations
Our Global Footprint: FY 06 Revenues EUR 3.8bn 20% 7% 31% 42% EuropeNorth AmericaAsia / PacificJapan
Our Company
Our Products
Strong Customer Base
*Calendar year 2006, by revenues. Source: Gartner, February 2007

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2006-07-03 Page 3
Qimonda TechDoc in Numbers
One central department with about ten people
●
information developers, authors, programmers, contractors and students Responsible for
●
More than 300 documents
●
two variants of almost each,
●
based on 500+ text insets
●
and 1000+ illustrations

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2006-07-03 Page 4
Current Work Mode
TechDoc uses structured Framemaker® 7.1 since 2004
●
Developed its own DTD (as part of Infineon Technologies AG)
●
Currently with more than 350 elements We achieved full XML round-trip and integrated XSLT processing
●
Use of XML and SQL databases,
●
Automatic build of tables from data and figures from tables,
●
Filters text and even table columns based on Boolean expressions. DTD updates have always been a major issue
●
No simple roll back after evaluation period of new release
●
Many XSLTs need update

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2006-07-03 Page 5
Business Demand
Currently the deliverables are
●
English only – for engineers to build systems and applications
●
PDF only – for download, no hardcopies distributed Key performance indicators
●
Accurate documents in time for each new product
●
Updating old documents within short cycle time Qimonda is speeding up product development and increasing product portfolio to serve its customers better and to reach out for new customers.

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2006-07-03 Page 6
Current tools and process would require significant increase in headcount to barely match the upcoming demand.
●Review on document level is inefficient due to high reuse rate
●High amount of administration work

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2006-07-03 Page 7
Use up-to-date tools that support
●Topic-based editing & review
●Automatic build of deliverables

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 8
The Mission
Go and buy a DITA-based single-sourcing CMS and re-engineer the process. Main Arguments
●
DITA is topic based.
●
DITA supports multiple reuse strategies.
●
Out-of-the-box support of DITA advertised by many IT vendors
●
A CMS reduces manual work and provides administrational support.
●
The internet is full of white papers, case studies and reports that support this strategy.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 9
Survey
The subtitle of this presentation
●
DITA in the light of the technology adoption life cycle My questions to the audience
1.
Have you already heard about the Technology Adoption Life Cycle?
2.
Are you familiar with Technology Adoption Life Cycle?
3.
Do you have marketing background?

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 10
Technology Adoption Life Cycle (1)
Where did I get to know?
●
Reading about best practice in the recently published book (2007) “Information Development” by JoAnn T. Hackos
●
As technical author you support marketing to sell a technology (product/service) to different customer groups.
●
The technology adoption life cycle
–
is a marketing model
–
significant when products require change of behavior (discontinuous innovations)
–
clusters customer groups (market segments)

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 11
Technology Adoption Life Cycle (2)
Why does this apply to DITA?
●
I rate DITA as a discontinuous innovation.
●
Moving to a DITA-based system makes you the customer in a high tech market.
●
So I read the book covering this model in more detail: “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore And this theory serves beyond buying new tools
●
Do you remember any IT project that failed due to lacking acceptance of the target users? – I do!
●
You will need great marketing skills to sell your new DITA and CMS stuff to your colleagues!
●
Colleagues have to invest time and trade their old tool, skill and processes.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 12
Ideal Technology Adoption Life Cycle
t
Number of potential customers

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2006-07-03 Page 13
Innovators
●
These are fellows that you refer to as techies, tech junkies.
●
They are risk takers and are willing to try out new technologies that come to their radar screen and look appealing.
●
They have special radar screens as they go to industry-wide meetings and congresses that foster new technologies.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 14
Early Adopters
●
These visionaries are the rare breed of people who have the insight to match an emerging technology into a strategic opportunity.
●
They have a dream and take significant business risks to achieve breakthrough improvements.
●
Visionaries bear with bugs and bad documentation as long as there is the commitment to their project and good support.
●
They are easy to sell as they are in a hurry to leapfrog competition.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 15
Early Majority
●
The pragmatists, a rather huge group!
●
Their target: solve daily problems with incremental improvements that are proven to work.
●
Pragmatists want case studies and references - but they trust only other pragmatists. The work of early adaptors/visionaries is suspicious to them.
●
They want to calculate the ROI and TCO (return on invest and total cost of ownership).
●
Their strength is to wait and see, which technology evolves as mainstream as mainstream gets most support from other resources which is great for ROI.

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2006-07-03 Page 16
Late Majority
●
They will adopt new technology after some time watching the pragmatists.
●
No need to be ahead of the crowd.
●
Such followers are known as conservative.
●
They want one thing for one job, a scanner to scan and a copier to copy.
●
If you survive without the new stuff why should you bother.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 17
Laggards
●
There are fellows that always find one more reason not to change unless forced.
●
This critical group is a great source of feedback if you know how to address them.
●
They are called the skeptics.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 18
Revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle

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2006-07-03 Page 19
Techies
Visionaries
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Skeptics

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 20
Techies
Visionaries
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Skeptics
The Chasm !!!

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 21
Time to brainstorm!
Please rate
●
yourself,
●
your team,
●
and your management. And then rate
●
your IT department
●
and the consultancy company. Finally rate
●
DITA and the vendors ...
Techies
Visionaries
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Skeptics
The Chasm !!!

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 22
Where is DITA and the tools?
Out of the Box
●
How much configuration is possible, how much customization is needed? Support
●
Do you have a choice between in-house-IT and consultants?
●
Which amount of budget and/or skills is available?
●
Do your consultants help you to stay as close to standards?
●
Are they proud of implementing any thought you mention? BYO
●
Bring your own tutorial and task description? Documentation?

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 23
DITA the marketing buzz word
The vendors say "We do support DITA“. The case studies say "We make use of DITA“. And I say "I am about to use DITA". My personal conclusion
(From webinars, conferences, meetings, demos and white papers, workshops, discussions and evaluation)
●
DITA can be used in a very flexible manner
●
No one uses all features and maybe there is no second (yet) that uses them the same as I want.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 24
Algebra of sets for DITA (by G. Krause)
information
typing
on topic level
information typing within topics
topic structure
inline elements

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 25
structure specialization
and generalization
information typing on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
metadata
domain specialization
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross references
provides some
sample domains

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 26
and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
metadata
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 27
filename rules
structure specialization and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute- based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 28
filename rules
structure specialization and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute- based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 29
filename rules
and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute-
based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 30
filename rules
and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute-
based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 31
filename rules
and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute-
based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 32
filename rules
and generalization
information
typing
on topic level
information typing
within topics
indexing
multiple
reuse
strategies
hardware
domain
condition
attributes
with
Boolean
equations
metadata
attribute-
based filtering
attribute
speciali-
zation
in general
map
elements
topic structure
inline elements
cross
references
provides some
sample domains
procedure topic
Config file based
rendering
variable definition
files

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 33
Examples for DITA “support”
Solution 1
●
Implemented maps as file folders with shortcut links to topics.
●
No dedicated map editor.
●
No relationship table, no view of map content. Solution 2
●
Limited support of inline tags like superscript and subscript (XHTML editor). Solution 3
●
No experience with conref to report, yet.
●
No large scale usage, yet.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 34
Obstacles (1)
IT department does not like every database or technology or vendor!
●
ActiveX and/or Java allowed?
●
Standard relational database versus proprietary XML database?
●
Some tools are not yet certified for Windows Server 2003 ... Your important users might be non-mainstream using UNIX / Linux / Mac
●
One editor tool is available for UNIX but the ready-to-use CMS integration requires Windows Internet Explorer.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 35
Obstacles (2)
Qimonda TechDoc is request driven
●
TechDoc has no clue when a topic needs to be updated.
–
SME -subject matter expert- may submit requests with technical details and deadline
–
SME must review content block for technical correctness
●
Our SMEs may create and edit source files on their own
–
But they lack interest in documentation details and reuse strategies
–
They do not care much for the writer’s guide
–
They (ab)use structure to achieve their favored look-and-feel
–
Quality check of DITA files necessary by TechDoc department.  Review on topic level mandatory for Qimonda

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 36
Obstacles (3)
Review options
●
PDF-based review
–
The only online option in some solutions
–
No closed loop back to authoring tool
–
Requires search-and-find as well as copy-and-paste by TechDoc department.
●
XML-based review
–
Solution stays within paradigm of XML
–
Server-based review allows collaborative review by multiple reviewers
–
Build-in in the “wrong” CMS
–
Stand-alone XML review tool comes without ready-to-use integration into CMS and workflow

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 37
Issues that seem to be neglected
Filename convention
Link management
Publication control

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 38
In file-based CMS you need a filename
Such a filename should not be the topic title
●
In our data sheets we have plenty of chapters titled "Overview" that are not based on the same topic.
●
If title serves as filename you are locked
–
Updating the title destroys the consistency with filename
–
or you update the filename, too, and all the references are misleading to the old revision or dead or need to be updated by a daemon. If title is just a metadata like topic type
●
Then you can use the topic ID as filename.
–
A GUID is 32 or 36 characters long
–
Very long in a decent list of topics with multiple metadata columns.
●
I prefer something with 18 digits or less like part numbers in SAP® systems.
–
A counter or unification engine is needed inside the CMS.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 39
Linking is very important for relationships
The DITA standard supports URIs as link target
●
In map: topicref.
●
In topic: conref, link, xref , source, lq; image; author, publisher.
●
In programming domain: fragref. Update support
●
You either install active link management,
●
Update links when target gets changed (where used list!),
●
Or calculate links at editing or publication time Suggestion: Replace links by metadata describing the target.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 40
Variables as special links
Variables can be realized with conref
●
During editing a generic topic with variable definitions is preferred
●
During rendering this topic should be replaced by the specific one with values for the intended output file.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 41
Publishing by config file instead of dialogs
Applications do provide dialogs for rendition.
●
How often do you render a day?
●
How many different rendition settings do you use? Standardization and reuse call for config files.
●
Some renditions use the same publication format.
●
Some renditions use the same filter settings.
●
Some renditions use the same topic with variable values.
●
Some renditions use the same map.

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 42
Publishing by config file instead of dialogs
Output file is the rendition of the config file
●
Any output file is only one rendition of many for each map
●
The metadata of the output can be derived from config file.
●
Check if rendition is up to date can be derived from data in config file.
–
Trigger auto-rendering?!

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 43
Conclusion
 There is a DITA standard  But there is no standard DITA implementation ... and DITA does not even cover every aspect.

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2006-07-03 Page 44
The old tools and processes are not fit for the present and future

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 45
Evaluation of DITA-based single-sourcing CMS in the technology adoption life cycle
Techies
Visionaries
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Skeptics
The Chasm !!!

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 46
For Qimonda the DITA tools are available but barely through the chasm

Krause, QAG PD PDE
2006-07-03 Page 47
How much of DITA do you need?
Techies
Visionaries
Pragmatists
Conservatives
Skeptics
The Chasm !!!
How do you rate yourself and your team, ...?

Thank you
The World’s Leading Creative Memory Company

Did DITA Cross the Chasm?

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