Delivering Finalized Versions of Maps and Topics That Are Still under Work in Progress
This session will present a way for technical writers to continuously deliver content while other writers are still working on the document. By looking at how software development uses branching, the coordination need for technical documentation can be limited even though the development organization handles tens of thousands of DITA maps and topics, has hundreds of cross functional teams/writers spread around the globe and individual unsynchronized time plans for the features to be documented.
What can attendees expect to learn?
Companies/enterprises that have frequent deliveries and many teams or writers contibuting to the same maps and topics, especially when working agile, face the challenge to be able to deliver approved finalized content when topics and maps are constantly in progress due to new product features constantly being introduced.
The presentation will show one way of handling this using the CCMS to set up development and release branches similar to how SW code is being developed. This setup has the benefit that it (in most cases) removes the need for writers/teams to coordinate their work even though they collaborate on the topics and maps.
Another alternative to adressing the challenge is to use DITA profiling (profiles: “in development” and “approved”) but this would require the writers/teams to coordinate their work in order to be able to set the object to workflow state: DONE (or similar that is required by most CCMSs).
Meet the Presenter
Fredrik Smidfelt is a program manager responsible for customer product information at Ericsson. Fredrik is part of Ericsson’s corporate steering group for customer product information and was the project manager for introducing DITA at Ericsson.
Fredrik has since nearly 20 years been working with technical information in various positions within the telecom and other industries.