financial impactunderstanding and communicating the financial impact of xml and dita

© 2008 JustSystems Inc.

Understanding and Communicatingthe Financial Impact of XML & DITA

Jeff DeskinsMay 7th, 2008


Introduction

• Jeff Deskins– Principal Consultant, JustSystems, Inc.– 20+ years of experience in the industry at multiple

companies of varying sizes and industries– Contributed international standards including DITA,

S1000D & ATA working groups, and OASIS PLCS– Author of numerous papers/presentations on

information development and information architecture


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


Polling

How many languages do you translate yourcontent into?• Only use 1 language• 2 – 5 languages• 6 – 10 languages• 11 – 20 languages• 21 – 30 languages• 31+ languages


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 supportsales, marketing and service activities


The Ripple EffectHow Global Targets Inflate Content Volume

• Adapting to a much larger mandate also requires the need tounderstand and communicate the implications, limitations andsuitability of:


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


Step One:Choose and Evangelize your Information Model

DITA: Darwin Information Typing Architecture

• XML-based technology foundation that controls andmanages creation, translation, workflow, and publishingof 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


* Organizations save 40-70% or more in documentation and localization costs* Organizations save 40-70% or more in documentation and localization costs



Example:

• A manufacturing company recently adopted DITA after a globalexpansion required translation to 14 new languages

• During pilot project (which encompassed just one set ofdocumentation), the company measured savings of more than$225,000 within the first three months

• Today the company produces dozens of documentation sets inmore than 20 languages



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


• Traditionally, TM tools send entire documents throughtranslation process – including already translatedcontent

• Also need to find best point to translate along thecontent lifecycle– If too early: Waste– If too late: Jeopardize deadlines

• BUT – When topic-by-topic vs. whole documents:

DITA introduces Flexibility

Step Two:Determine Impact of the Right TranslationWorkflow


Step Two:Determine Impact of the Right TranslationWorkflow

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 toproof & match topics that have

not changed

75 topics for translation

Since 125 are easily reused,costs reduced by over 60%


Step Two:Translate Impact of the Right TranslationWorkflow

Savings at Every Step: Global Content Creation with DITA


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


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



* 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



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)


Step Four:Select Technology Partners Who Facilitate ROI

• Unified contentdevelopmentenvironment (UCDE)contains multipleapplications

• Applications mustintegrate to provideseamless workflow


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


Step Four:Content Storage

• CMS – workflow and metadata support (aids inreuse)

• Source Control – file integrity support


Step Four:Content Publishing

• Generates DITA topics into deliverables

• Server and desktop support


Step Four:Content Translation

• Manages translation workflow

• Manages translation memory (TM)


Summary

• Understand how translation affectscontent 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


Resources

• http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users• http://dita.xml.org• http://na.justsystems.com

– White papers– Webinars– Flash demonstrations

• Visit us at Booth #6

financial impactunderstanding and communicating the financial impact of xml and dita

Business

information model step

information architecture

information modeldita

information necessary

new languages

case step

pollinghow familiar

measurable roi step