Publishing Discipline

The Risk = Any improperly vetted information we put online can bite us

Part V of this series of articles that share useful insights and practical guidance to troubleshoot underperforming self-help and learning systems

When an organization creates/revises an important resource, the effort typically invokes the discipline of publishing. When the quality of the resource must be excellent, we pay strict attention to writing, editing, formatting, reviewing and distribution.

This is because we recognize that:

• Subject matter expertise is needed to provide key information
• Editing is a vital contribution to ensure proper tone, depth of coverage, terminology, etc.
• Formatting ensures readability and consistency with similar resources
• Reviewing confirms that the content is appropriate and vetted
• Distribution (publication) alerts the audience and ensures that out-of-date materials are retired

One can summarize the above by stating that many skills are needed — along with significant expertise — to produce a high-quality, professional resource. This begets a question:

Is it reasonable to expect that high-quality, professional knowledgebase resources can be crafted without a publishing process?

It is tempting to differentiate resources by perceived importance and allocate attention to detail accordingly. For example, most people would assert that a 150-page human resources manual is definitively more important than a two-paragraph web page. Such an assumption is not necessarily in the best interest of the organization. A risk manager would council management to examine the potential harm caused by misinformation and allocate quality control resources accordingly. If the HR manual applies to only a few hundred staff members and there are ample supporting resources to minimize the risk of a mistake, perhaps the web page’s potential to sow confusion among thousands of potential customers represents the higher risk. From that perspective, we simply cannot tolerate the risk of publishing information that may cause avoidable problems. The point being:

We cannot know today what problems may arise tomorrow;
anything we publish can bite us

When it comes to producing modest content resources — FAQs, instructions, topical web pages — content is often created quickly in response to an emerging need. The publishing process consists of a quick re-read after hitting the enter key sans editing, formatting, testing and tweaking. Never mind that the same management team overseeing this work would have a collective conniption over a typo in a PowerPoint for the Board. What’s the big deal? It’s “just” an FAQ…

It’s understandable that a manager evaluating the task of creating an FAQ would intuitively conclude that it can be readily produced by one knowledgeable person in a brief period with no muss nor fuss. Given the demands on scarce resources such as subject matter experts and editors, why would an organization invoke a formal publishing process for a straightforward set of instructions or a few paragraphs of text?

These perceptions are common but uninformed. Consider that a knowledge base resource must:

• Balance brevity and usefulness: Artfulness is required to craft useful and intuitive knowledge resources that serve the needs of a spectrum of users. It’s problematic that casual observers often misconstrue the sophistication of simple-looking items. As discussed in the article — The Curse of Elegance — the better the team does their work, the easier it looks.
• Complement — not conflict with — existing resources: Crafting a useful FAQ is not a trivial accomplishment. The question must be phrased in the vernacular of the user, not the expert. The metadata must make it readily discoverable and the navigation must make it prominent in proper context. The answer must be appropriate and consistent with other published information and should alert the user to other useful resources.
• Be maintained: Every published resource burdens the organization with life-cycle maintenance. Informally created resources are far more likely to become buried in a knowledgebase — only to surface later as problems — than are those that went through a publishing process.
• Serve the needs of future users: An informally created resource published in rapid response to an emerging need is unlikely to serve future users as well as a resource that is reviewed and tweaked by experts.

It would be a remarkable person who has the subject matter expertise; familiarity with existing resources; writing, editing, formatting and technical acumen; and in-depth knowledge of the needs of users to craft a knowledge resource that meets the above criteria. Even so, it would be even more remarkable if that unusually talented person were available to produce it.

Practically speaking, once we accept the assertion that every published item warrants attention to quality, then it makes sense to invoke a team-based process as the draft is composed and edited before being tested & tweaked.

The savvy organization realizes that — regardless of size or perceived importance — knowledgebase resources warrant the advantages of a publishing process, albeit one that is appropriately configured to handle the volume and nature of demand. It is not necessary to have our best copy editor and lawyer scan every paragraph, but an editor should be involved, a style guide should be referenced and there must be a review of the new resource and any existing resources that it affects.

A key to achieving buy-in for the enterprise publishing approach is to persuade leadership to acknowledge that an intuitive and useful knowledge resource is inherently important and challenging to craft. Conversely, poor-quality resources are likely to create problems for users and support staff. Need an ally to help make the argument? Engage your risk-management experts; they’ll make a compelling case.

Next Topic: Follow the Principles of Professional Publishing

Part VI recommends adopting an enterprise content strategy that consolidates content development and publishing efforts for all channels including our marketing, self-help, support, intranet and extranet channels. In a nutshell:

• The information needs of all target audiences will be addressed from the outset, from the Board to the customer support agent
• All published content is derived from the authoritative source material
• All content is produced via the centralized production process
• All publication is approved and coordinated

Directory of All Topics

Browse this directory to discover how to troubleshoot the often thorny problem(s) preventing our self-help, intranet, training, support and/or extranet knowledge bases from being incredibly useful.