Presentation by AmberSwope and John Hunt at Xpubs 2008.

DITA, or Darwin Information Typing Architecture, is one of the most popular information models to suit today's content-rich, multi-channel environment. It provides a standardized, technological foundation, which helps organizations better control and manage the creation, translation, workflow and publishing of information as a business asset. Enterprises looking to fast-track their content strategy while minimizing the risks of a "big-bang" initiative are choosing DITA for its promise of flexibility and incremental adoption on the road to automation, integration and universal content management.

But every enterprise is different and every organization is at a different level of readiness for DITA adoption. How do you know where to begin? How do you plan for and manage the required investment and associated ROI? How do you move the enterprise content strategy from the back room to the board room and develop a framework for success?

The DITA Maturity Model provides a context to understanding the investment and return for adopting DITA at different organizational levels. The model starts with the most limited investment of moving to topics and presents a path leading to universal knowledge management. For organizations who have already adopted DITA using topics, maps and specializations, the next step is to move to Level 4 adoption and leverage their investment in semantics with automation of key processes and improve speed and efficiency.

This presentation will briefly introduce the different levels of DITA adoption, but focus on Level 4 adoption and cover investment and return to realize increased productivity across disciplines.