Metrics that matter: Making the business case that documentation has value

Christopher Ward
Bernard Aschwanden
www.webworks.com
www.publishingsmarter.com
christopher@webworks.com
bernard@publishingsmarter.com
Metrics That Matter:
Making the Business Case that
Documentation Has Value
17:58
1
@aschwanden4stc @webworkschris

Overall Objectives
17:58
2
 Tell the story around content as a business asset.
We agree there is value in documentation but have
been challenged at times to “prove it”
 Present to groups including sales, support, service,
IT, engineering, QA/testing, manufacturing, HR,
training, finance, marketing, and every other
business unit in your organization
 Demonstrate how documentation drives sales and
generates corporate revenue to managers and
executives helping them see how important
documentation is to them

What you can expect to learn
17:58
3
 Gain tools and processes needed to prove the value of
documentation.
 Show that docs provide valuable information to the
intended audience
 Prove that docs benefit marketing, sales, and technical
support teams
 Explain the value of documentation through the tools and
processes used in these other departments.
 Leave empowered to walk into any discussion knowing
how to present the value of documentation and to
explain why technical communicators should always be
in charge of that documentation.

We will not…
17:58
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 Discuss HOW to collect the numbers
 Detail complex spreadsheets, charts, graphs
 Explain how to create a slideshow

Defining “business case”
17:58
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 Formal, written content created to convince decision
makers to approve a specific action.
 Ideally it explores all feasible approaches to a given
problem and enables business owners to select the
option that best serves the organization.
 In the context of documentation, it may be used to
justify why a documentation team is best serving a
business by showing the value to every part of the
organization.
C

The story
17:58
6
 WebWorks was launching a new product
(CloudDrafts) and had a development plan
 Needed docs, and looked at that early on
 Sales (Chris) was onboard early to have professional
writers for many reasons
 Frees up developers to develop
 Provide higher quality content
 Leads to more revenue
 Had to pitch this to others in the organization
C

What we knew going into the
discussions around this project
17:58
7
The business value of content

Content effects the whole business
 Data/Content is not a problem to be addressed by:
 Sales
 IT
 Marketing
 Development
 Any single business unit
 It is a business problem because if done wrong or
right, it will effect the whole business.
17:58
8

How we wanted to position the
conversation with key players
17:58
9
Promoting the value

Include in your promo to Sales
17:58
10
 Sales leads who read online docs ask better
questions, are more qualified (informed consumer)
 People review docs as part of the purchasing cycle
 Sales people need to know that docs help make
sales easier, and that numbers go up
 More time with qualified buyers, less time wasted
with uninformed consumers
 More sales helps the business
C

Include in your promo to Support/Service
17:58
11
 Writing docs means testing the products
 Reduce bugs, increase time answering “real”
questions
 Support continues to support clients, not act as
software testers (in beta… not even a final product)
 Service continues to develop solutions with clients
(billable time to a client)
 Happy clients helps the business

Include in your promo to IT/Engineering
17:58
12
 Provides a second set of eyes on dialogs, error logs,
anything “written for a client”
 These people were not hired to write
 Less for IT to test (writers provide some level of
input)
 Engineering develops new product (instead of writing
weak content, they provide strong input)
 Product improvements helps the business

Include in your promo to QA/Testing
17:58
13
 As with service and engineering, another set of eyes,
with an impartial view and no known history (no bias)
 Usability tested during content creation (if it doesn’t
work as planned, documentation will prove it)
 Let QA/testing focus on complex use cases, not the
day-to-day ones
 Stable, reliable products helps the business

Manufacturing? HR/Training/Finance/Marketing?
17:58
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 Every business unit in your organization is similar
 They are often overworked, underappreciated,
understaffed, or they feel they are
 More often than not this is because they aren’t doing
their core jobs, and not through fault of their own
 Dedicated doc teams helps the business
 With the right support you reduce overhead in other
departments
 People do the jobs they were hired to do, and are supported in
content creation for the customer, with a focus on user need
C

Some of the names should be on the
list, and some are not what you
expect
Backup the idea that content matters
@aschwanden4stc 17:58
Top 500 corporations love
content

Content is a business asset
17:58
16
 Apple: Empowers people with breakthrough
services including the App Store, Apple
Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Depends on
content, provides tools to consume it.
 Netflix: The world’s leading Internet
television network with over 75 million
members in over 190 countries enjoying
more than 125 million hours of TV shows
and movies per day, including original series,
documentaries and feature films.
 Google: Everything they do is about content.
Finding content, delivering content, creating
content. They make money when you look
for content.

More companies, more content
17:58
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 Adobe: Help you create content
 Microsoft: Create and manage content
 IBM: Manage, deliver, analyze content
 Samsung: Consume content
 Verizon: Deliver content
 Walt Disney: Create content
 See a pattern? Content is king

January, 1996 essay: Content is king
17:58
 “Content is where I expect
much of the real money will
be made on the Internet, just
as it was in broadcasting.”
 Remains true today: Content is
a business asset
 Great content means a great
business asset
 Content is not just what is seen
by the public
 Copyright, trademarks,
software code, legal, medical
patents, help docs, sales
reports, marketing materials
and so much more
18

Without them you have no baseline
and no hope to make a business case
17:58
19
Get your metrics started

General ideas
17:58
 Metrics are calculated
measurements (planned,
devised)
 They must have value as
it pertains to a project
 Used for decision making
20
C

Consider all parts of a project
17:58
 Dependencies
 Critical components
 Processes
21

Things to measure
17:58
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 Time
 Costs
 Resources
 Productivity
 Quality
 Efficiency
 Customer satisfaction
 Others your business values
C

Benefits and uses
17:58
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 Create more accurate project estimates
 Talk clearly/numerically about why it took longer than
expected–speak with authority
 Justify expenditures (e.g. new hires, contractors),
tools (licenses, upgrades), or services (trainers)
 Have numerically sound reasons for updates to
procedures & processes, changes in software tools,
attendance at training or seminars, etc.
C

Benefits and uses (continued)
17:58
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 Justify saying “no” to increased project scope or to
insist on “yes” to your needs
 Measure time, money, resources, etc; use this for
making strategic decisions
 Present information in a way that is easily consumed
by management
 Determine your documentation improvement
strategy with customer satisfaction metrics
C

Discovery of a need for content
17:58
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The WebWorks story

WebWorks: Key Players
17:58
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 Tony McDow, CEO/Founder
(doubles as “Mitch” in Baywatch)
 Chris Ward, Director of Sales
(doubles as “Eugene” in Walking Dead)
 Ben Allums, Director of Engineering
(doubles as “Locutus” from Star Trek)

The Vision: CloudDrafts
17:58
27

Development
17:58
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 No documentation existed for CloudDrafts
 Knowing content is a key business asset, helps drive
sales Chris pitched the importance of content to
Tony
 Easy pitch as Tony is already in the world of tech comm
 Tony grasped the importance of docs for both internal and
public use
 First thought was “let’s get the developers to write it”
 Then laughter, lots of laughter
 Not because the developer isn’t a good writer, but…

Writing expertise
17:58
29
 Chris to Tony: “Ben can’t do all the writing…”
 Common reasons include:
 He’s an engineer, we don’t pay them to talk to customers
 He’s paid to manage development, not write manuals
 Developers are paid to create code, support product growth,
enhance functions and features
 This is new, advanced tech, putting demand on Ben’s team
 There is an education period for customers, we need tutorials
 We need to explain the concept of our repository
 Knew we needed good docs to ensure people can relate to it
and have success. Good docs equals success.
C

Initial steps
17:58
30
 Discussed budget numbers
 Asked vendors for a few quotes/bids,
reviewed them,
 Didn’t make the call JUST on the
dollars
 Also looked at experience in writing tech
content
 Vetted writers based on knowledge of similar
(but obviously substandard competing tools
)
 Had discussions with stakeholders, got to
know the personalities and found a good fit

Initial onboarding of writers
17:58
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 Demo to show functions and ask
questions
 Both the writing and development teams
asked questions
 The product evolved with writers questions
 Expectation of lower service and support
needs due to questions (anticipated issues
before product release based on input,
changes made before RTM)
 During testing and docs writing, WebWorks
reorganized the product, value added to the
engineering team

Delivery of the finished product
17:58
 From the beginning,
content was in DITA
 Published via WebWorks
(drink our own
champagne)
32

Once content was published…
17:58
33
 Finished product seen by CEO/sponsor
 Positive impression, understood the benefits of what was done
by the content team,
 Delivered content and attached metrics
 Tracking who looks at what, how often
 Content achieves the goals it was designed for
 Easy to use
 Educates and encourages people to use the product
 Helps drive sales
C

Moving forward
17:58
34
 Helps with future product development
 Pinpoints where people have trouble
 Identify the most common topics searched for, time on page,
search results
 Through discovery realized more features were
needed
 Docs helped provide a clear roadmap to CloudDrafts
v2.0
C

Net results
17:58
35
 24/7 educational responses to
customer inquiries
 Feedback for customers to express
true needs, to see what they wanted to
do
 Better than a focus group, it was live
results, and evolved as content was
updated
 Allowed WebWorks to realize revenue
quicker with solid documentation
 All backed with metrics using Google
Analytics
C

The proof that this where you
make the business profitable
17:58
36
Which metrics show
the value of docs?

Top 10 lists are awesome
17:58
37
 Ask support for the top 10 questions
 Document how long to answer them
 Document how often they answer them
 If 2 times per day, per rep, and it’s a 5 minute answer
 Rep spends 10min/day. If 6 reps, 1 hour… Each day
 365 hours per year (about 9 weeks assuming 40hrs/week)
 Document how long a team needs to create answers
 Assume it takes 2 weeks with 3 people = 6 weeks effort
 Compare the savings
 2 weeks pass, you “spend” 6 resource weeks, to save 9
weeks/year
 Resource cost = 6 units, return is 9 units (50%) within 2 weeks…

Top 10 your sales reps
17:58
38
 What do they demo the most
 Create videos so that the world can see it
 Add tutorials to the demo version (if you have one)
 What do they find most complex to explain
 Write clear information to summarize it
 Free up reps to say “sure, let me send you a copy of the specs
for IT” and then move on

Top 10 your content
17:58
39
 Not only the 10 things MOST read/reviewed
 Also the 10 things LEAST read/reviewed
 Is it because the content is not ‘findable’
 Or no longer relevant
 Has the issue been fixed
 In any case, if no one reads it, why do you create/edit/manage
it

Tools, tips, processes
17:58
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What you can do to improve

Stop doing “the same thing”
17:58
41
 Just rewriting content doesn’t help
 If you repackage bad content into good content, but
do not solve a problem, no one wins
C

Comparing two sets of text
17:58
 Your browser is not one of our
officially supported varieties and
therefore the flow through certain
areas of our site may not be as
robust as otherwise. To fully utilize
all of our great features, we
recommend switching to one of the
following:
 Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or
higher (download now)
 Mozilla Firefox 3.0 or higher (download
now)
 If you prefer not switching to one of
our recommended browsers at this
time, you are still more than
welcome to visit our website,
although you may not get to utilize
all of our features to their fullest
extent,
 If you have any questions, please
call our Sales Super Centre at 1-
800-538-5696.
 Our site does not officially support
your browser. Feel free to explore
with it, but you may not be able to
use all our features.
 You may want to update your
browser. Consider using one of the
following:
 Microsoft Internet Explorer (download
now)
 Mozilla Firefox (download now)
 If you have questions or encounter
problems, please call our Sales
Super Centre at 1-800-538-5696.
 From 114 words to 67 ~40%
reduction!
 Message is clean, easy to
understand
 Translation costs decrease
 Message removes the feeling of
blame
43

Metrics that matter: Making the business case that documentation has value

Consider using highlighters!
17:58@publishsmarter
46

Add metrics
17:58
47
 You can start to see how to build a story
 Make it relatable, talk about what others have done
 Talk about successes and about failures
 Explore your metrics
 Then get to know what people are looking for
 Take the story and make it personal

Summing up the discussion,
and options to continue it.
17:58
49
Conclusion and contact

Your next challenge
17:58
50
 Go tell the story around content as a business asset.
Use information in this session to “prove it”
 Present to groups including sales, support, service,
IT, engineering, QA/testing, manufacturing, HR,
training, finance, marketing, and every other
business unit in your organization, using their terms,
and show value to their teams
 Demonstrate how documentation drives sales and
generates corporate revenue and help managers
and executives understand how important
documentation is
C

How to do it
17:58
51
 Stats (Gardner) and case study (WebWorks) are tools
and process to prove value
 Engage and educate your audience, reduce support,
complaints, costs; increases sales cycle, increases
profits
 Show that good docs (written by good people) reduce
overhead and turnover of staff in other departments,
improving the entire organization
 Walk into any discussion and present the value of
documentation
 Explain why technical communicators should always be
in charge of that documentation.
C

Follow up contact information
17:58
52
 bernard@publishingsmarter.com
 Call 905 833 8448
 Twitter: publishsmarter OR aschwanden4stc
 LinkedIn:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardaschwanden
 christopher@webworks.com
 Twitter: @WebWorksChris
 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WebWorksChris
 Company Facebook:
www.facebook.com/WebWorksePublisher
 Blog: http://blogs.webworks.com/christopher

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