Olga Gomonova

Organizations produce different types of content—marketing, customer communication, and blogs, among other pieces. This content needs to be well-written to accomplish its goal, which is easy to do for any experienced writer. But what if your content is technical? And what if your technology is an invention that you’re describing for the first time? In this case, producing high-quality content is a high-stakes exercise that requires a systematic approach to ensure a high-quality outcome.This post offers a quick guide on how to set up a system of review for a complex content, which teams to lean on, and what technology to use to support this effort.At Unqork, we frequently create complex content. We teach our customers and partners how to create speedy, secure, enterprise-grade apps in record time using a “no-code” language.Unqork is a platform for rapid app development for enterprises. To operate within the Unqork environment is to be able to superspeed your app development process. There's a bit of a learning curve involved, and our enablement function is dedicated to producing content that helps flatten and shorten that curve.Our documentation covers integrations, APIs, workflows, and other specialized content that users use to build rapidly. We can't afford to produce documentation that contains errors or misses best practices or poorly explains concepts, so we established a robust system of content review. We also had to consider a sequence of reviews, personas, and technology to support the process.Let's take a look at an example. If we need to create an article on API integration, we need to involve at least five teammates to ensure that the content is flawless. First, we pick an article request from JIRA. Someone at Unqork submits a ticket request; this is our way to crowdsource ideas for the content. The head of instructional design (ID) picks the task and decides if it fits the overall curriculum map. This is critical because to build a comprehensive body of knowledge we need to ensure that each piece of knowledge is created within a logical system and fits with other lessons we teach our users. If the content fits, the head of ID forwards it to the instructional design subject matter expert (SME) for technical scoping. Once the scoping is completed, a SME sends the outline to the head technical writer to add the task to the sprint and assign it to a writer. The writer picks up the job and creates an article.Once complete, the article goes back to the SME for review, then back to the head writer for review, then back to head of ID for review. It may take several rounds of revisions before it is complete. Thus, at least three different teams and five different teammates review each piece of content before it sees the light of day. So, mistakes are rare!To manage this complexity, we use MadCap Central’s cloud-based contribution and review editor. This technology allows all the reviewers and creators involved to work out of a single portal and exchange notifications once the review is complete. (Check out the process flow for the review cycle below.)For any type of content you produce, it is important to have the right type of review system in place as well as the right technology to support the process. The more technical and sophisticated the content, the more thorough should be the cycle of review and the more robust the technology you use to write it. For the most complex content, we recommend tying multiple teams together—technical writing, instructional design, and possibly another technical team (in our case, it is solutions) to contribute SMEs to the process. Then, we recommend leaning on robust technology to support such a huge collaborative (and creative) effort; in our case, it is MadCap Central. Then, voilà! You have yourself a super guide on how to create something entirely new.About The AuthorOlga Gomonova is the Head of Enablement function at Unqork. Prior to joining Unqork, she worked for several Fortune 500 companies with a focus on technology and financial services, including State Street Corporation, McKinsey & Co, and Microsoft Corporation.Olga Gomonova graduated from Tufts University with a degree in International Relations and Finance and an MBA degree from Harvard Business School. Olga loves politics and spends her free time keeping up with the current affairs.

Managing Workflow and Review: Who Needs to Evaluate Your Content Before It Goes Live?

July 2021 - TD Magazine

As demand for education skyrockets, Unqork delivers a state-of-the-art, persona-based learning academy.

Empowering Customers to Educate Themselves

At Unqork, we value education. We believe that knowledge, new skills, and unique abilities drive creativity in problem-solving. From the beginning, Unqork’s focus has been on building a robust enablement function that acts as a center of knowledge for our organization. Today, Unqork supports more than 10,000 students engaging in dozens of programs and certifications.To launch and scale the function quickly, I developed four stages of organizational maturity. Recently, I presented a webinar that focused on those stages and demonstrated how picking the right technology, building the right team, and selecting the right focus areas helped me scale the function in a control fashion.In this post, I’ll offer more insights into these stages.Stage 1Stage 1 is around building out a minimum viable product for your educational offering. At this stage, all you need is to prove that demand exists for your “product.” You’ll need to launch a basic version of your course then present it to a willing audience. If the feedback is positive and you get follow-ups, consider it a win.The most steps to take during stage 1 are to lose fear and research. If you need a place to start, I recommend checking out the Technology Services Industry Association. This company produces top-notch research for educational services, including benchmarking and best practices.Stage 2Stage 2 involves scaling. Since you know that there is a demand for educational services at your company, you need to focus on growing your audience and improving your “product.” This is the right time to start hiring a team. Your team’s most barebones version should consist of you, a technical writer, and a technical trainer. This frees you up to focus on two important decisions that need to be made in stage 2: selecting a learning management system (LMS) and a single-source technical writing platform.There are hundreds of LMS platforms available on the market, each with unique features. When selecting a platform, I recommend creating a list of requirements and measuring the providers based on how they score against those requirements.The same process should be done when it comes time to selecting a single-source technical writing platform. We evaluated numerous solutions, including Adobe’s FrameMaker and RoboHelp, and DITA. MadCap Software met all our requirements. Today, our content resides under one umbrella as a single-sourced project from which we pull into different areas: Academy, in-product help, user guides, and more. This extreme organization allows us to scale without running a risk of losing track of versions and creating duplicate content. Picking the right platform was a critical step in our growth process.Stage 3Stage 3 is about turning your educational offerings into an actual product. This means that your course (or any content you produce) should be beautiful, well-designed, and easy to consume. One of the key obstacles you will face will be around building the right team. By this point, you should start thinking about creating at least three separate functions: technical writing (to produce the content), instructional design (to design the content), and technical training (to deliver the content).Stage 4Stage 4 is all about commercialization. By this time, you should already be running a robust organization. When thinking about whether to make your educational services free of charge or to commercialize your offering, remember two facts:1. Just because education is offered for free doesn’t mean anyone will consume it.2. Putting a price tag on educational services makes them seem more valuable to the user.Industry best practice is to make educational services a revenue-generating function.About the AuthorOlga Gomonova is the head of enablement at Unqork. Prior to joining Unqork, she worked for several Fortune 500 companies including State Street Corporation, McKinsey & Co, and Microsoft Corporation. Olga graduated from Tufts University with a degree in international relations and finance. In 2014, she received an MBA degree from Harvard Business School.