Developing a Collaborative Writing TeamMy Experience at GE HealthcareJeannette EichholzGE HealthcareClinical SystemsUltrasound

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Imperatives Within Corporate Medical Writing EnvironmentMUST • Meet Global Regulatory Requirements • Control Costs• Ensure Quality• Launch Products Simultaneously to

Global Markets• Within Shorter Project Cycle TimesWith Flawless Execution

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Imperatives WithinGlobal Regulated Environment• FDA Regulations require that we all follow the same processes and SOPs

– Compliant– Increased Quality and Consistency– Verifiable– Repeatable– Cost-Effective

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CMS ImperativeImperative to standardize processes globally to meet regulatory requirements and to improve processes to meet business requirements to reduce costs and cycle time to reach global markets simultaneously. From• Content Developed on their own PCsTo• Shared Content Management System

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GE Ultrasound successfully implemented a CMS for its user documentation.

In 7 years we’ve gone from 2 products to 30 products and from 10 languages to 31 languages.

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Benefits of Implementing a CMS

Reduced overall translation costs by 50-60%Translation costs even over past 7 years

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Reduced Translation Cost -- JME

$0$100$200$300$400$500$600$700$800$900

$1,000$1,100$1,200$1,300

1999 2001 2003 2005 2007

Total (LOGIQ Only) inthousands of dollars

2 Systems10 Languages

22 Products31 Languages

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Benefits of Implementing a CMS

Global Simultaneous Product Launch in all Required Languages (31 and counting)

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Simultaneous Global Rollout

1999 2001 forward•Collaborative•Simultaneous•Reusable•Translate incrementally

ProgramStart

Clinicals

ProductLaunch

FullProduction

•1 Writer works serially on each product•Translate as complete book

TranslationComplete

AFTERProduct Launch

TranslationReady at ClinicalRelease

ProgramStart

Clinicals

ProductLaunch

FullProduction

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Benefits of Implementing a CMS

Increased Market Coverage

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Reached more markets JME

0123456789

101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233

1999 2002 2004 2007 2008

Languages Supportedby GE Ultrasound

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Benefits of Implementing a CMS

Established Collaborative Writing Team

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User Documentation Paradigm

USIsrael Norway

ChinaKoreaJapan

India8 Product Centers

Collaborative Global Effort

VIVID Content

LOGIQContent

StructuredSGML

Content Management System

IndividualProducts

Germany

Xslt Conversion

PDFs

eDOCs

Translate

Online Help

1-Step Process

Paper Docs only on Request

1-Step Process

Increased Consistency

31 Languages

No Desktop Publishing Cost

Via F1 on Scanner

eDOCs

Decrease Cost

Electronic Documentation

Ship Complete

Leveraged Translation Memory

Austria

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Why has GE’s CMS Implementation been Successful? A CMS implementation CANNOT succeed without a successful collaborative writing team. Indeed, our collaborative team is the cornerstone to our successful CMS implementation.

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What Did We Overcome?

Let’s take a look, Before, and After.

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“Before” Scenario, without CMS• Writing Silos – Mfg Centers in US, Japan, Korea, China, India, Norway, Germany, Austria, Israel• Used tools where sharing or single sourcing was impossible• Content / Templates started out the same, but diverged over time• New acquisition assimilation difficult

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Redundant, Cumbersome, Expensive L700 L500 L400 L200 L100

Help

Paper

CD-ROM

SpanishFrenchGerman

ItalianPortuguese

SwedishDanish

RussianTurkish

Greek

Each Documentation

Set wasTranslated

into 10 Languages

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Writing Silos Collaborative Team

Stand-Alone WritersAuthor-Controlled ContentTweaked TemplatesIndependent Budgets“Their” ContentContent on Writer’s PC

Collaborative Writing TeamTeam-Controlled Content ; Controlled “Brand” IdentityShared BudgetCorporate Intellectual CapitalContent in Controlled Content Management System

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What improved and how did it get better when we moved to this environment? We learned that there are a lot of benefits to having a collaborative writing team.

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Benefit: Shared Content Reuse Strategy• Eliminated Redundant Content Development in Each Manufacturing Center• Develop Reuse Strategy – Plan Yearly• No Duplication of Effort / No Redundancy• New features written by writer where new feature was developed – Migrated to product line as feature added to product’s feature set

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Benefit: Shared Costs

• Share Template Development Costs (FrameMaker, Online Help, Translated Templates)• Share CMS and CMS Customization Cost• Share Automated Tool Cost• Share Translation Cost• Centralized Control & Management

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Benefit: Wrote Collaboratively

• Write Content Once – Reuse Many Times• Write Generically to Fit Multiple Products• Consistent Content – Changes Decided Upon as a Team• Content Easily Migrated Across Product Lines• Content Reviewed Continually

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Benefit: Developed Automated Publishing Tools• Manually created FM Books, TOCs, Indexes, PDFs, Online Helps vs Using automated tools• Now automatically generate FM Books, TOCs, Indexes, PDFs from sgml file• Use Batch File to generate 30 translated files• Online Help auto generated from sgml xml xslt transformation html help

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Benefit: Standardized within GE Brand• Controlled Templates• Controlled Content• No more copying and pasting• Change content in one place; updated in every reuse• Assures content integrity• Achieves Brand

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Benefit: Increased Consistency, Accuracy, & Quality Content• Consistent Content• Accurate Content• Tested Content• Subject Matter Expert Verified Content• End User Validated Content

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Benefit: Re-Purposed Content

• Can re-purpose content to be used by Marketing, by Training, Help Desks• Single source content for pdf and chm files Automatic (Not a Separate Effort)• Can re-purpose same content into different manuals• Multi-functional purposes: training, marketing, across product lines

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Writers’ Jobs Didn’t Go Away, They Evolved• Content Analysis, Metadata Strategy• Reuse Analysis and Strategy• Tool / Techology Selection, Upgrade, Migration• Concise Source Content – Editing Skills, Testing, Verification with SMEs, Validation with End Users• Template, CSS Management, Automated Processes • More Techno Savvy (sgml, xml, sgml, DITA, language encoding, unicode…)• Better, Smarter Writing, NOT More Writing

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ContentDevelopm ent

NewProcesses

Pegasus

DatabaseManagem ent

New Structure

W rite C ontent

510(k) D ocum entW eb Version

Add C ontentto D atabase

TranslateC ontent

Assem bleD ocum ents

PublishD ocum ents

D istributeD ocum ents

G lobal D ocum entR eview P rocess

Translation/ValidationProcess

D ocum entation/Softw areIntegration Process

D ocum entation/Softw areVa lidation Process

D ocum entationU pgrade P rocess

Set U pBack-upProcess

Add C hrystalB ridge to

Fram eM akerC ontent

Set U pLingua

LearnLingua

Set U p AstoriaSoftware/H ardw are

& ArchitectureLearn

C hrystal

C rea te/M ainta inFram eM aker

Tem plates

W rite D ocum entdtd 's

Ana lyzeD ocum entStructure

Train W riters to U seTem plates/Structure

C reate D ocum entAssem bly

InstructionsM ainta in /U pdateStructure

G lobal D oc TeamProcess

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Benefit: Leveraged Translation Memories – THIS IS HUGE!!!• No longer unique product documentation sets, generating multiple sets of translation memories -- Now only one set of Core Content• One Core Content • One Core Content Translation Memory• One TM Leveraged across Multiple Products• Consistent, Correct, and Clean TMs

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Without WithCollaboration Collaboration$.25 Per Translated WordEach Page = ~250 WordsOr $62.50 Per Translated Page X 1000 Pages = $62,500X 30 Languages = $1,875,000X 15 Productsor $28,125,000 Additional Writers Required

$.25 Per Translated WordEach Page = ~250 WordsOr $62.50 Per Translated PageX 1000 Pages = $62,500, X 30 Languages = $1,875,000, /5 Manufacturing Centers, or $375,000No Additional Writers RequiredEXCEPT that it’s even less. We only write

and pay to translate the delta. So, the actual cost yearly is now $400,000 per year, or $80,000 per mfg ctr.

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And that’s not even counting the time savings… Faster Turnaround Time (1000 page manual ‘written’ in ~ 2 weeks, ‘translated’ in ~ 1 week, ‘dtp’d’ in 1 week, validated and released in 1 week. Start to end, ~5 weeks, in as many languages as you want.

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Translation Notes

• Only pay to translate the delta in the database (fuzzy + no matches)• Over the past 7 years, the budget has remained constant, between $250,000-$350,000 even though we’ve gone from 10 to 30 languages and from 5 to 16 products • And this $250,000 - $350,000 cost is divided by the number of manufacturing centers• So each manufacturing center pays roughly $70,000

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So, Finally, Let’s talk about what it takes to get a Collaborative Team Off the Ground • Definition• Getting Buy-In• Planning Your Team• Operating Mechanism• Developing and Nurturing Your Team•Team Meetings

• Tracking Progress• Standardizing Tools/ Processes• Sharing Budgets• Accountability• Escalating Issues• Hiring for a Collaborative Team

Group Hugs

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Definition

A Collaborative Team is a group of individuals who share common beliefs and work towards common goals. They meet regularly over an extended period of time. Team members share decision making, flexibility, and creative problem solving strategies.

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Getting Buy-In

• From Managers• From Writers• From Finance• From Marketing• From Program Team Leaders• From HR

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Planning the Team

• Need to convince team members of the value of working on a team. • Share templates and develop together• Develop standards• Validate translations• Automate processes

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Operating Mechanism

• Communicate almost daily• Meet every 2 weeks• Plan, collaborate, strategize, analyze, write• Always Improving processes• Ensuring integrity of one set of content

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Developing & Nurturing Your team • Changed the way we wrote• Train on an on-going basis• Empower each team member• Know each person’s strengths & rely on them

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Team Meetings

• Regular, Scheduled• Work from an Agenda• Prepare a Standard Status Report• Communicate Issues• Track Progress• Give / Take

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Tracking Progress

• Celebrate Wins• Track Progress / Changed Milestones• Communicate Issues in Plenty of Time

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Standardizing Tools/Processes

• Keep infrastructure up to date• Ask team members to research new tools• Plan future together• Communicate issues as they occur• Agree on templates

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Sharing Budgets

• Prepare yearly budget• Determine program requirements, deliverables, translations resources• Track costs• Report out

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Accountability

• Team members must do their own work• Must prepare content on time• Must follow due diligence (review, validate, follow style guide, abide by template rules)• Be a good team member

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Escalating Issues

• Some teams only show up when they need something or when their project is active• Have an escalation process (go to their direct manager, or to the program leader, or to your manager)

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Hiring for a Collaborative Team

• Need to hire team players• Not just looking for technical skills or industry knowledge• Interpersonal skills near the top of the list• Screen out lone wolves, the not-so-nice• Involve the team in the hiring process

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Group Hugs

• Thank everyone for their hard work• All for one, one for all• Celebrate each other’s successess• Recognize hard work• Recognize good work

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Conclusion

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of Its Parts• Each writer learns from everyone’s strengths• Together as a team, we accomplish more, cheaper, faster, with increased quality and consistency• Can generate a 1000-page manual as quickly as 2 days, but normally within 2 weeks• Can translate a 1000-page manual into pdfs and online help within 3 weeks

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Collaborative Team Success Transfers directly to your company’s bottom line.Enabling global content on time – no longer a cost center, but a corporate asset

Information becomes capital when it is employed to produce profit.

Developing the Content Management System to manage our corporate knowledge assets allows us to easily find, use, and re-use content in a way that maximizes its value to our organization and minimizes the cost to create, maintain, and assemble it for a particular business need.