1. The Strategic Role of Information Development in Continuous Delivery
SREYA DUTTA | ASAD HALIM
Oracle Applications Cloud
© 2016, STC India chapter

2. Introduction to continuous delivery
Agenda
Introduction to continuous delivery
Oracle Applications Cloud case study
Challenges and recommendations
Discussion!
© 2016, STC India chapter

3. Deliver user assistance that maximizes customer value
Key Objectives
Deliver user assistance that maximizes customer value
Be an integral part of the development team from inception to delivery
Optimize tools, processes, and infrastructure to support this
© 2016, STC India chapter

4. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY: Setting the Context
Production, testing, and release in short and predictable cycles
What is continuous delivery?
Continuous Delivery
Release
Build
Test
Deploy
How can I contribute as an Information Developer?
Continuous delivery: Predictable and sustainable cadence of product or service upgrades
Contribution of Information Development: Facilitate product upgrades by communicating changes, new features, and best practices
Communicate constant product changes; facilitate customer adoption

5. Development for Continuous Delivery
The Agile Scrum development methodology enables us…
We all know what Agile development is. Even if we haven’t worked with a scrum team ourselves, we all understand the general principles.
© 2016, STC India chapter

6. Focus on critical content
Value-Driven development
Scope
Fixed
Estimated
Resources
Waterfall
Time
Fixed
Estimated
Resources
Agile
Time
Scope
Waterfall type project management works well for well defined processes, for example, in manufacturing of FMCG. Software development has many more variables.
In Agile, scope is the only variable. So, in information development, we must focus on the most critical user assistance deliverables that bring customer value, that is, deliverables that can give maximum bang for the buck.
Focus on critical content

7. Oracle Applications Cloud Case STUDY
© 2016, STC India chapter

8. Background
ORACLE CLOUD
PLATFORM
APPLICATION
DEVELOPMENT
Systems Management
Architects and IT Ops
INTEGRATION
MOBILE
CONTENT AND PROCESS
BUSINESS
ANALYTICS
Data
Management
A large enterprise with diverse tools, processes, cultures, and many customers
Incrementally deliver functionality in a predictable cadence
Change tools, processes, and standards to communicate constantly and consistently with customers
A large enterprise with diverse tools, processes, team cultures, and many customers
Must deliver small increments of product functionality in a predictable cadence
Change tools, processes, and standards to ensure consistency across deliverables, and constant communication to customers

9. Changing Expectations
Review Label
Embed Help
Review Message
Review Label
The role of the information developer is becoming more challenging, requiring high precision in the choice of words.
The current age demands new and simplified look and feel for applications. The designs are more visual, have little space for text, and must work for desktop and mobile devices at the same time. This is where information developers must put on the minimalism hat and, with product owners, arrive at precise labels and messages for display on the UI. Information developers must take the extra time to influence design, provide the non-technical point of view, and be the voice of the customer.

10. Need to Push Critical help to users
This is a patented design of pushing contextual information to users. It enables users to:
Read (or view) help right on the UI
Change the help as they see fit
© 2016, STC India chapter

11. Embracing the Change
Participate in development from inception to delivery
Transform tools and processes to:
Align user assistance with product delivery
Support decision making by providing critical information
Provide channels for customer contact
Deliverables
Presence
Infrastructure
On the previous slide, we indicated that our focus is now on language on the UI, UI-based help, and overall UX. To support this, we must work as integral members of the development team (scrum team). Also, we must transform our tools and processes (and philosophy!). The expectation from us is that we will:
Deliver the most important help (apart from the UI-based help) in line with product delivery
Provide key information (wherever possible, directly on the UI) to support customer decision making during product implementation and upgrades
Provide multiple channels for customers to gain information

12. Presence from Inception to Delivery
Features in Design Repository
Feature Descriptions
Release Documentation
Potentially Shippable Product
Application (including UI help)
Backlog
Development (includes user assistance) by Sprint
UA: User Assistance
Single design repository used for:
Identifying the most valuable features that customers will use 90% of the time and moving them to the product backlog
Formalizing the feature names and descriptions that will be used in release documentation
So, information developers wear two hats:
Scrum team member: Like other team members, information developers and managers review and approve features
Consultant: Work with product owners to finalize feature names and descriptions that can be used directly in release documentation
So, information developers are expected to use their language expertise to help product owners articulate how features will really add value to the target user.
UA and training

13. Constant Communication
Development by Sprint
Discuss UI text, user assistance requirements
Sprint Planning
Design reviews, story pointing (including information development effort), discussions
Prepare for delivery
Complete UA analysis, code UI text, including UI help
Constant Communication
Sprint Demo
Verify definition of done
Sprint!
Code, test cases, User assistance analysis
Verify UI text was coded
Write critical help
Done?
Code, testing, automation, help analysis complete
Almost done
demo

14. Centralized tools and Infrastructure
Centrally-Administered
Review Tools
Agile User Assistance
Analysis
Quality
Centrally-Administered Authoring Tools
Modular and
Automated Delivery
Review
Use centralized tools to create, reviews, and code all UI text
Refer to examples on “Story of Changing Expectations”
Analysis
Manage user assistance analysis within Agile process management tools
Generating user assistance design documents aligned with Agile tools such as Jira.
Authoring
Use centrally administered authoring tools
Delivery
Deliver small chunks of modular content iteratively
Automate content creation and delivery; for example, developer and security documentation
Quality
Automate quality checks
Accessibility, translatability, structure, using in-house tools and Acrolinx, schematron
Same in-house tools used for UI text and our user assistance
© 2016, STC India chapter

15. Confluence/JIRA-Based Agile Help Analysis
It is in our interest to use the tools that the development team is using. Why?
To integrate seamlessly with application development
Reduce redundant work
Documenting and tracking user assistance stories and providing status to the scrum team
Completing formal user assistance designs
Reporting status to our management
For example, where our development teams use JIRA, we perform user assistance using documentation tasks, and then use a JIRA report to create a consolidated user assistance design document by sprint or release for reviews and approvals.
© 2016, STC India chapter

16. Modularizing Content http://fusionhelp.oracle.com
Plan self contained topics that provide maximum value
Focus on a specific task, decision, or concept
Don’t assume users are reading our content in sequence
© 2016, STC India chapter

17. Automating Content Creation and Delivery
Developer and technical documentation is automated wherever possible.
© 2016, STC India chapter

18. Change mindset, both ours and of development teams!
Challenges
Issue
Impact
Constantly changing scope
Very little time for extensive planning and help analysis
Minimal design documentation
IDs required to write content based on working software
Constant upgrades
Customers require immediate and consistent information
Short deliverable cycle
Traditional forms of help too elaborate to keep up with product delivery
The biggest challenge is changing our mindset!
Change mindset, both ours and of development teams!

19. Recommendations
Recommendation
Description
Embrace change
Take the lead as communicators; be the voice of the application
Engage actively in product design
Influence product development where possible; add value by providing the customer’s point of view
Focus on critical communication
Embrace minimalism and focus on value. Prioritize delivery of what’s critical over end-to-end documentation

20. Our role must evolve to align with these changes
Final takeaways!
User expectations about product experience, delivery, and information are changing
Our role must evolve to align with these changes
We can maximize customer value by:
Taking advantage of being an integral part of the scrum team
Leveraging our expertise as language experts and focusing on delivering critical information
The inherent collaborative nature of Scrum methodology is a boon for information developers.
Take advantage of being an integral part of the scrum team along with other disciplines.
Our role is strategic because we communicate key information about product upgrades and keep customers informed about constant changes to the application.

21. What’s your experience of continuous delivery?
Discussion
What’s your experience of continuous delivery?
What are the main challenges you face?
How are you resolving them?