Amy Etheridge of NICE and Carol Hattrup of Netsmart has used CXone manage a content platform of more than 50 products with a team of just 4 people.
Examined DITA and realized we didn't need that level of structure, even though Hattrup has used DITA her whole career and is a fan of structured authoring. The key is to have structure, and within XML.
Etheridge pointed out that it's important to ask what users would do without content. In most cases, that would be a support call.
The company was acquiring companies but not adding writers. So the problem wasn't as much a platform problem as a people problem. Writers weren't embedded in engineering. PMs, support, and others, as many as 900 people, could author and publish. It was a Wild West Wiki, a free-for-all. No governance or consistency. Content in duplicate and triplicate. Thousands of errors. People had stopped trusting the content.
A typical knowledge base structure is unorganized. It is necessary to organize content into topic hierarchies.
Although XML isn't DITA-based, it does have structure. Had to teach people why structure was important. One thing was consistency. Consistency reduces stress and promotes learning.
Adding content types makes content scannable, findable, and easy-to-understand. Templates restrict content to those content types.
Real challenge was to take away the access of 900 people. Had kickoff, explained benefits, expressed gratitude to contributors, imposed guardrails, and required training.
Expert's Review Manager is what saved us. Made reviews easy to prioritize and accomplish.
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