Best Practices: How to Motivate My Writers to Use Acrolinx Every TimeSeptember 2014

~ 150 staff, with expertise in training, graphics, video (multimedia), SharePoint, programming, and web development

Report to Program Management

Writers located in USA, India, China

Work with design engineers and customer engineers – both software and hardware – scattered around the world

Both internal and external documents

Much content written by engineering personnel

Typical tools: MS Word, MS PowerPoint, and FrameMaker

Qualcomm Technologies Inc. Technical Publications

Supersized!

Bottom-up, not top-down

Qualcomm Technologies culture

See a need for a new process or new tool?

Innovations happen at the “grass roots” level

Peer pressure

Not dictated – management may not enforce usage

Plan another attack to put your tool into common use

Values…

Inspire

1

Lead

2

Celebrate

3

Build an enthusiastic team to create success you can celebrate!

Get ready to change…

Planning…

Knew overall acceptance would require new launch method

Knew we were looking at document quality improvements

Knew we picked the right tool (Acrolinx)– Style Guides could be adapted, combined, and unified across silos

– Terminology could be cleaned up and consolidated between HW and SW

– Tool is fun to use

– Tool is easy to learn

– Tool is perfect English refresher course for everyone

– Tool provides HUGE cost savings for translation

– Tool creates “one voice” and common branding among documents

Knew we needed to clean up content before moving it into a CCMS!!

Starting the tool launch process…

Preparing the groundwork…

Created an “A” team of ~30 members – Including IT server admins, core leaders, project leaders

– 2 members from each major writing group (1 interested in linguistics role and 1 interested in terminology role)

– Trainers, graphic and multimedia designers, SharePoint designers

Created Jira site for bug tickets during testing with docs from all writing groups

Planned for an internal user guide

Planned for a quick reference card

Continuing the process…

More preparation…

Created Acrolinx SharePoint site, which included

– Marketing banner and video

– Goal to optimize technical documentation• Enable consistent use of terminology, grammar, and style

• Create reusable content

• Enhance readability

– Quick links to plugins, FAQs, rules list, training videos

– Support workflow to contact Acrolinx team and report issues or ask questions

Worked with Acrolinx project leaders in USA and Germany

Attended Acrolinx webinar training as appropriate to role on team

Moving on…

Marketing, marketing, marketing…

Created marketing video to advertise new tool

Created branding graphic for SharePoint site and emails

Created 50 posters, placed around our building

Planned “Demo Day” for Acrolinx launch– Ordered food for each session

– Created handout

– Scheduled multiple training sessions during day using in-house trainer

– Set up session registrations

– Assembled Acrolinx team volunteers to answer questions and also install plug-ins after sessions

– Advertised to entire department

– Provided giveaways

Done! Celebrate!

Go Live…

“Demo Day” end of April

– 56 people attended the training presentations

– Spawned 60 Acrolinx users the day after

Gained new users every week thereafter (~100 currently)

Presented all 30 Acrolinx Team members with gift awards for a job well done

Keep the momentum going…

Ongoing advertisements…

A couple months later, devised an Acrolinx contest – Use documents run through Acrolinx during month of June

– Writers must select full rule set

– 2 prizes• Most improved score

• Highest score

– Verified scores on server

Kept Acrolinx name in our internal email news

Helped socialize the tool and increase its usage

Plan to repeat this contest

Another month goes by and then there’s more…

New project: thank heavens for Acrolinx!

Tech Pubs received a gigantic writing project for new products and new customers

– Translation required (new to our department as a whole)

– New types of documents required

– Must move writers to new writing methods and eventually to new tools

• Move content to MS Word

• Think tasks -> DITA topics

• Rewrite, reorganize, and break up prior content

• Move some content into Reference Manuals

We’re changing…

New project: thank heavens for Acrolinx!

New process defined for writing docs with minimalism and translation in mind

– Acrolinx became key tool in new process

– Supported by upper management

– Writers must run Acrolinx on docs using full rule set

– New minimalism editing process so editors can concentrate on these requirements while Acrolinx controls the normal edits

Short completion and delivery schedule

Workflow snippet…

New writing process proposal

Write/Edituser story

---------Tool: MS

Word

Editgrammar,

style, terms, spelling---------Tool:

Acrolinx

Edit for Minimalism [Return to

Writer]---------

Tool: Manual Edit

Tech Lead (SME)

review/approve content---------

Tool: MS Word

What to buy?

Innovation

Reinvent your department

Be prepared – you must anticipate the future need for tools –think about tools you may need to buy based on your document quality and focus

Research what’s out there – learn about tools that other companies like to use

– Attend conferences

– Talk to friends in other companies

– Attend local society meetings

Discuss new ideas with your group

Bring vendors in to provide tool demos

Tips for success…

Managing the user experience

MOST IMPORTANT - Include staff on your launch team who others respect and enjoy working with

Make change management a fun experience

Develop know-how - learn a tool quickly with instant success!

Develop peer pressure to encourage others to join in using Acrolinx