ann rockley — agile life sciences

@arockley

www.rockley.com ©2014 The Rockley Group, Inc.

@arockley


Agile Life Sciences Content

Ann Rockley, President

The Rockley Group

@arockley


The Rockley Group

• More than 15 years’ experience in Healthcare

• Clinical

• Labeling

• Promotional

• Industry experts

• Structured content strategy

• Content reuse

• Structured content management systems

• Content globalization strategy

• Multichannel delivery

@arockley


Rockley customers

@arockley


Ann Rockley

• Known as the “mother of content

strategy”

• Forefront of content strategy, reuse,

structured content management,

multichannel delivery (print, Web,

eBook, mobile)

• Passionately committed to defining

and sharing industry best practices

• Master of Information Science

• Fellow of the Society for Technical

Communication

@arockley


Agile:

Today’s Best

Practice

@arockley


What is Agile?

• The methodology associated with Agile was developed

for the software industry to speed up the development

of software

• Prior to Agile, the most common software development

process was the Waterfall process (sequential through

the lifecycle)

• Rather than waiting until everything is finished Agile

creates iterative interim deliverables that are assessed

and rapidly updated

• Agile results in faster turn-arounds

@arockley


Agile is

• Faster

• Less time to create, review, and publish content

• Less expensive

• Reduced costs of creation, translation, and review

• Less rework

• Controlled

• Current practices are very manual and subject to error

• Agile is controlled, typically through content

management (version control, workflow, automated

repeatable processes)

@arockley


Agile for Life Sciences is not

• As iterative as software development, needs to be right the

first time

• Developed through Scrum sessions

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Agile:

Today’s Best

Practice

@arockley


Agile content for Life Sciences is:

• Modular

• Reusable

• Structured

• Controlled

• Collaborative

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Modular

• Typical Life Sciences content is created, reviewed, and

managed in documents

• Agile content is modular; content is chunked into smaller

pieces

• Content is created, reviewed, and managed as modules

• Modules are assembled into documents

@arockley


Benefits of modular content

• Faster to:

• Create

• Review

• Change

• Translate

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In context

• But what about ensuring that content is

correct/appropriate/understandable when it is modular

• Content is reviewed in context

• If content needs to vary in a specific situation, the content

is branched but still tracked in relationship to the source

@arockley


Modular translation

• New/changed modules are translated when they are

approved, no need to wait for the entire “document” to be

complete (dramatically shortens timeframe to completed

translation)

• Modules that are unchanged that have previously been

translated are not translated again

• A PDF of the section or document is provided to ensure

that sufficient context is available for effective translation

• When something changes, only the changed module

needs to be retranslated

@arockley


Reuse

• Reuse is the practice of “pointing” to common content and

referencing it into your material (not copy and paste)

• Write once, translate once, reuse many

• Review once, use “many” (e.g., same caution multiple

places is translated once and used many)

@arockley


Benefits of reuse

• Write once, use many

• Translate once, use many

• Update once and everywhere it occurs it is automatically

(or selectively updated)

• Mass updates take days or even hours, not months and

months

@arockley


Pharma

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Structured content

• Content has identifiable structure

• Structure allows us to identify what content is, not what it

looks like

• Inconsistent content can be made consistent through

structure

• Structured content is format neutral, any stylesheet can be

applied to content based on its structure

@arockley


@arockley


Managed in source

• Content is never Never NEVER managed in the output (e.g., InDesign)

• Content is updated and managed in the source then pushed to output

• Why not?

• Managing in output means changes don’t make it back to source (InDesign changes don’t get made in Word)

• Updating InDesign or using it as the basis of new product information is “brutal”

• Getting Word out of InDesign is problematic and error prone

• If the original Word files are used there is a very good chance they are not up-to-date

• Multiple versions of the same, but different content exist

@arockley


Print

• Content can be automatically “poured” into structured

templates

• Translated content is poured into templates designed to

accommodate the language requirements

• Change the source, not the print, to ensure that content is

controlled

• Change the look and feel, no problem, simply re-pour the

content into the new layout

• Minor tweaking required

@arockley


Empty structured label template

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Automatically filled label

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Print: Empty structured InDesign template

IFU

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Automatically filled IFU

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Web

• Content can be automatically “poured’ into structured web

templates

• Change the source, not the web page, to ensure that

content is controlled

• Change the look and feel, no problem, simply re-pour the

content into the new layout

@arockley


Mobile

• Source content can be automatically:

• Layered

• Displayed/not displayed based on rules (e.g., screen

size)

• Mixed and matched to build customized/personalized

content

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Control

• Elimination of manual processes

• Content is managed in source, not output

• Change in one results in change in every occurrence

• Content is tracked at every point in the lifecycle

• Strict attention to version control, permission for change

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Collaborative

• Authoring is collaborative, many authors can easily work

on the same document and see each other’s work

• Review is collaborative, reviewers can review

simultaneously and see and comment on other’s review

comments

• Content that is common across products/versions is

managed centrally, no duplication of effort

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Resistance to change

• No more managing content in output (e.g., InDesign)

• Fear of reviewing modules not documents

• Use of new technology

• Latest fad

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Overcoming resistance

• Educate

• Expect problems, deal with them and move on

@arockley


Benefits of Agile

• Shorter timeframes

• Reduced costs (translation, review, publishing)

• Higher quality

• Predictable processes

@arockley


Agile:

Today’s Best

Practice

@arockley


Summary

• Make your content agile to respond to rapidly changing

requirements (modular, structured, reusable)

• Reduce costs

• Increase speed

• Take control of your content

@arockley


Questions

Ann Rockley

[email protected]

@arockley

mailto:[email protected]

You can watch this webinar with Ann Rockley on the BrightTalk Channel at:

https://www.brighttalk.com/webcast/9273/133489

ann rockley — agile life sciences

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