To Look Forward, First Know Where You Are

One of the problems we have when we say that we want to move forward, create a web portal, adopt DITA, you can go to conferences, view case studies, see the steps they took, but did they start from the same place. When starting a new project, you know where you want to go, but you don't know where you are. 

The future depends on what you do today. Getting to where you want to go is a process. What can you do today to prepare? 

So conduct a current state assessment. Why? To set a baseline of your current content and development approach. The baseline is how you measure the success or shortcomings of your future state. You can't plan for the future if you don't know where you are now. You should be able to answer questions such as How long did it take to produce that? or How much did that cost?

An assessment should include both the quality of your current content and details of the processes that you currently use. 

The criteria you can use to evaluate your content should include writing style, structure, media use, findability, reusability, usability, and competitiveness.

Reuse isn't about creating fewer topics, but about creating a better structure. Reuse is a writing benefit, not an end-user benefit. Information is written and structured for reusability in the authoring process. It should be at the right granularity. If your writers are struggling, might not be doing it well. 

Content usability is all about whether users can easily and effectively use it to accomplish their goals. Deliverables enhance the end user experience where content flow is easy to follow and is readable and understandable. 

Technology and tools will not solve your content problems. 

Process maturity measures your organization's ability to deliver information products that consistently meed customer needs consistently and effectively. 

Five levels pf process maturity: ad hoc, rudimentary, organized and reasonable, managed and sustainable, and optimizing. Organization with a maturity level of 3 or greater have a better likelihood of successfully implementing a new content strategy.