RE: The State of DITA; was, I'm now blogging about Agile & TW

[Kevin McGowan <thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

Hi Leonard and everyone...

 

I've been using DITA exclusively at my last two jobs. I found that its success was pretty much dependent on me (and my immediate manager). Case in point, at my previous job, my then-manager and I brainstormed and decided DITA was THE way to go. I converted a thousand pages of goop into pretty little topics, and we moved forward with great plans of using those raw XML files as the online help system in our web-based product. Things looked really good. 

 

Then, my manager left. Then, I left. I did a little consulting work with that team after my departure to help them navigate through DITA, but the remaining folks found it too confusing (none of those remaining were documentation people, btw). As far as I know, they outputted all my old DITAMAP files into Word documents, and are back in the world of Word making all the same mistakes that I corrected when I converted it to DITA.

 

In my current position, I was hired because my manager liked the DITA concept when we talked about it in my interview. We create training materials here (we train federally appointed judges in Canada on relatively basic computer skills etc). My trainers absolutely LOVE the fact that they can be prepping a course for some judges, give me a list of topics they want to focus on, and I can whip up a DITAMAP, FrameMaker book...and then a PDF in about an hour. 

 

To summarize, I think DITA adoption is on the rise, but without a true champion for it in your organization, you won't get very far. Non-writers find authoring in XML to be a pain in the neck...

 

That's my $0.02. 

 

Cheers,

Kevin



 


> Subject: The State of DITA; was, I'm now blogging about Agile & TW
> Date: Wed, 2 Dec 2009 12:50:24 -0800
> From: Leonard -dot- Porrello -at- SoleraTec -dot- com
> To: hamonwry12 -at- hotmail -dot- com; jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com
> CC: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> 
> Ed's post makes me wonder; how is DITA doing in the real world? Is
> adoption increasing, leveling off, or declining? What's the rate of DITA
> adoption failure? Are TW teams that successfully adopted DITA finding it
> worth while and sticking with it?
> 
> Leonard
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+leonard -dot- porrello=soleratec -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- c
> om] On Behalf Of Ed
> Sent: Wednesday, December 02, 2009 12:39 PM
> To: 'John Posada'
> Cc: 'TECHWR-L Writing'
> Subject: RE: I'm now blogging about Agile & TW
> 
> I was heavily involved in an DITA implementation for a department of 40
> here
> in NYC. It was a fight the entire way, and I'm not even sure the
> company's
> using DITA anymore. 
> -=Ed.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Are you looking for one documentation tool that does it all? Author, 
build, test, and publish your Help files with just one easy-to-use tool.
Try the latest Doc-To-Help 2009 v3 risk-free for 30-days at:
http://www.doctohelp.com/ 

Help & Manual 5: The all-in-one help authoring tool. True single- sourcing -- 
generate 8 different formats and as many different versions as you need 
from just one project. Fast and intuitive.  http://www.helpandmanual.com/

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