Constructing Building vs. Constructing Content

I recently had a fascinating conversation with a friend in the construction business. I drew so many similarities between what I do with what he does.

Constructing a Building

Take, for example, the construction of a mall in an urban area. In the design and planning stages, there are five roles in the design and engineering team:

• Architect
• Structural engineer
• Civil engineer
• Mechanical engineer
• Electrical engineer

Architect

An architect designs the mall’s overall aesthetics and must conform to Uniform Building by Law (UBBL) 1984. The UBBL stipulates that all new buildings require the submission of plans for approval before construction by a principal submitting person (PSP). It also specifies the building’s structural requirements, construction, and fire requirement [1]. In a nutshell, the UBBL states the number of stairs, exits, running distance in case of fire, and the number of people that can be inside the mall at a given time.

Structural Engineer

A structural engineer looks at the layout and suggests the number of pillars and beams the mall requires. A structural engineer’s role is closely related to a civil engineer’s.

Civil Engineer

A civil engineer is responsible for the infrastructure for public works surrounding the mall, including water supply systems, sewage treatment, and roads. The civil engineer follows a traffic impact assessment (TIA) and sewerage treatment plan (STP). The civil engineer is primarily concerned with constructing roads to avoid massive traffic buildup and the mall’s water supplies and sewage systems.

Mechanical Engineer

A mechanical engineer designs the power-producing machines for the mall. Depending on the size of the building and according to UBBL’s requirements, a mechanical engineer will design the elevators, escalators, electric generators, and air conditioning systems. The mechanical engineer is also concerned about the method of fire fighting (sprinklers or hose reels) for the mall.

Electrical Engineer

Electrical engineers are responsible for the wiring system of the mall. Some of the notable questions that an electrical engineer must solve are: “How many lights and power are required?”, “How many streetlights?” and “What are the telecommunications (wifi and data points) required?”

Team Work Makes the Dream Work

It takes one architect and four engineers to design and construct a functional, safe, sustainable, and aesthetically pleasing building. I fully understand the expression: “An architect’s dream is an engineer’s nightmare.”

All these roles will work together to create the Building Submission Plan that contains the proposed mall’s full building details and structural calculations. The plan will be submitted for approval.

Only then can construction work begin.

Now that you are enlightened about the “Architect and Engineering Dream Team,” pay closer attention when you are at a mall. Notice the fire escapes, escalators, and lighting in the retail stores. Even notice those hidden in plain sight, such as sprinklers, fire hoses, or air conditioning.

It also made me realize that my favorite mall may very well be intentionally designed to match my expectations and overall shopping experience. It is easier to access, the lighting and the air conditions are working, and the toilets are working.

Constructing a Manual and its Ecosystem

So what does it say for your content management system? Can you adopt these roles in the Dream Team to construct a new manual and its ecosystem? First, I propose the following content models to emulate for solid, painless content adoption, migration, and maintenance. Secondly, I propose the borrowed roles and processes from the construction world to support the proposed content models.

Content Models

Most companies, confronted with hypergrowth and DITA technological debt among its talents, are failing to cope with the challenges of adopting DITA in a satisfactory manner. It’s mostly very rudimentary in nature. Just migrate everything and do it without a proper, sustainable plan. It is akin to building a house without a complete planning and building plans.

Like a UBBL, TIA, or STPs in the construction world, our content ecosystem offers governing models many may not realize: DITA Maturity Model and Content Maturity Model.

DITA Maturity Model

Authored by DITA experts Michael Priestley of IBM Corporate User Technologies and Amber Swope of JustSystems, the DITA Maturity Model addresses this confusion by dividing DITA adoption into six levels, each with its required investment and associated return on investment. Users can assess their capabilities and goals relative to the model and choose the initial adoption level appropriate for their needs and schedule.[2]

Content Maturity Model

The content maturity model is an excellent way to see where your challenges and opportunities are around creating content. You can use it to align stakeholders and team members around a shared understanding and get them excited about evolving their content practices. Most importantly, it gives you structure and support to start.[3]

Roles

Content Strategist: The Client

Your content strategist is the one that develops the content strategy and the roadmap. This person will know the business requirements and user’s needs and provide the content team with the outcome (build a mall for who, what, when, and where). A content strategist is the program manager (not the project manager) for content.

Like an LBBL or STPs for a construction architect, a content strategist must follow the DITA Maturity Model and Content Maturity Model. Understanding these two models will help your content strategist to steer your content team well. You can plan your content ecosystem according to these models. It will save you a lot of trouble in the future.

Information Architect: The Architect and Structural Engineer

Similar to the role of an architect and a structural engineer combined, an information architect builds the blueprint for the program. To do this successfully, an information architect must understand Darwinian Information Type Architecture (DITA), especially the set mechanisms for combining, extending, and constraining document types. Fluency in the definition and maintenance of this open standard will help a long way, especially when aligning with the DITA Maturity Model and Content Maturity Model.

Content Engineer: The Civil Engineer

A content engineer mirrors the role of a civil engineer. Content engineering is about making sure that the structure created by the IA agrees between systems, maps clearly from element to element, and the content can move freely between those systems. A content engineer’s primary goal is to ensure the content is repeatable and scalable in the DITA Maturity Model.

Similar to the role of a civil engineer; where the role’s primary concern is bringing structural stability, accessibility, and scalability to the building.

Content Editor: The Mechanical and Electrical Engineer

If the information architect and content engineers are concerned with the DITA elements and smoothness from one DITA level to another, content editors are concerned about the content quality, flow, and context of the manuals. The chapters, short descriptions, links, and bookmarks are the escalators and air-conditioning systems to the mall.

It is a bonus if the content editor has working knowledge of the DITA Maturity Model so that the content editor can suggest content quality improvements and communicate with the writers developing the manual during the development stages.

To summarize, if the content strategist is focused on the “who, what, when, and where,” the architect, content engineer, and content editor focus on the “how.” Ideally, the content plan created by the information architect should be discussed with the content strategist, content engineer, and content editor before approval for use by the content developers.

Only then can you do a groundbreaking ceremony to construct your manual.

References:

[1] https://www.nst.com.my/opinion/letters/2021/06/702748/ensuring-safety-our-building

[2] http://xml.coverpages.org/DITA-Maturity-Model.html

[3] https://contentstrategyinc.com/understanding-content-maturity-model/