Overview

Overall notes:

Generally speaking, content goes through a series of workflow “Stages” and “Statuses.” These are primarily expressed in Jira tickets, but the concepts are applicable throughout the process.
The Stage indicates an overall level of completeness and polish. For example, one would expect to find typos and placeholder content in early Stages and fewer (or zero) in later stages.
The Status indicates which role or organization has the ball at the moment (e.g., editorial, production, content lead).
Jira (or other workflow tracking system) will indicate the individual assigned.

Workflow Stages

Workflow Stage Overview

The high-level workflow stages help the team understand how close to “Done” the content is. From a practical standpoint, the management-level and overview boards (e.g., in Jira) track the workflow in stages.

In addition, the workflow Stage sets expectations for reviewers: early-stage work will be less complete and polished. So, reviewers are not expected to flag every typo or missing piece of information in early stages while in later stages any type of error should be flagged or corrected.

Workflow Stage Definitions

Workflow Stage	Description	Notes
Planning	The work is contemplated, but no meaningful work has yet been done.
Outlining	The content is taking shape. Essential elements such as the course audience and learning objectives are defined. The content itself is rough, and may be page outlines, sketches, storyboarding, or similar. Simply indicates that the structure of the content is a work-in-progress.	This stage usually contains at least one "Brain Dump" meeting in which the content team gets together live to work through what the course will cover.
First Pass (1P)	Analogous to a rough draft. The content outline is being filled in. Resources such as videos may be in storyboard development. Typos and errors are not unexpected, as are content gaps, missing or broken links, and so forth.
Second Pass (2P)	Analogous to a second draft. By the time content exits 2P, all placeholder content should be in place, links should be correct, instructions should be correct, and so forth.
Third Pass (3P)	A final review. By definition, no substantive changes should be made in 3P, only polish, correction of typos missed in earlier review, spot-checking of links, and so forth. In real life, we do, on occasion, find substance that requires changing in the final review. It’s typically up to the content lead to resolve the issue, whether it’s to send the work back to an earlier stage or fix it in place and schedule another “final” review.	Content being produced by external resources typically moves to production in this phase. Content typically edits 3P after integration with an LMS, final publication, or similar.
Done	The content has been integrated into the training material, and no more work remains. We also use this “Stage” for content that we decide is no longer needed, and any other situation where work is not expected to continue.
Hold	The content is not in active development, but work is expected to continue.

Workflow Statuses

Workflow Status Overview

The workflow status simply adds a finer-grained level of status detail to the stages described above. The purpose is to describe "where" a particular piece of content is in the production lifecycle.

The statuses are nonlinear — by design, and in tracking systems such as Jira. Although statuses are typically listed and displayed in a somewhat logical default order (e.g., 1P - Authoring is followed by 1P - Editing, which is followed by 1P - Tech Reviewing), it's expected that statuses will be skipped, repeated, and performed out of the default listing order based on the type of content being tracked.
The statuses are intended to describe a role being played in the production process. Tracking systems such as Jira will identify the specific individual currently responsible for the work, which, by extension, tells the team which department and organization is currently working the material.

Workflow Status Detail

Workflow Stage	Workflow Status	Jira Workflow Step	Notes
Planning		Planning	No tangible work exists, but the work is in the queue for creation.
Outlining		Outlining	The structure of the content is being formed. Optional, but recommended.
1P	Authoring	1P - Authoring	New content is being written or otherwise created. “Authoring” only appears in 1P. The bulk of the content generation should be complete before 2P, though it’s okay to have a few remaining placeholders.
1P	Editing	1P - Editing	Early content is being reviewed by editorial for clarity, consistency. In 1P, editorial may fix typos and formatting opportunistically, but the purpose of the review is around clarity and organization of ideas.
1P	SME Reviewing	1P - SME Reviewing	Early content is being reviewed by technology or content SMEs for accuracy, currency, usability. May include a quick run-through of step-by-step instructions.
1P	In Production	1P - In Production	First version of content is being created. May result in sketches, proofs, options. Typically applies to videos, scripts, audio, iconography, or other resource requiring technical artistry. May indicate an external production house.
1P	Lead Reviewing	1P - Lead Reviewing	The content lead for the material is reviewing. This may be the training program lead, or simply the SME/content lead responsible for this chunk of content.
2P	Editing	2P - Editing	Content is being edited for clarity and consistency. Includes detailed review, and corrections for typos, formatting, style. Flagging any broken links, placeholder content.
2P	SME Reviewing	2P - SME Reviewing	Content reviewed by technology SMEs for accuracy, currency. Typically includes a run-through of any Step-by-step instructions.
2P	In Production	2P - In Production	Near-final version of content is being created. Typically applies to videos, scripts, audio, iconography, or other resource requiring technical artistry. May indicate an external production house.
2P	Lead Reviewing	2P - Lead Reviewing	The content lead for the material is reviewing. Often the last review before moving on to 3P.
3P	Final Review	3P - Final Review	Final review. Only non-substantive changes to correct errors, repair broken links, etc., should be made in 3P.
3P	Final Production	3P - Final Production	Content is in final production. This typically indicates that the work is currently with an external production house.
3P	Integrating	3P - Integrating	Waiting for, or in the process of, integration with the LMS. (Content components such as videos may “sit” in this status while the rest of a Lesson or Module comes together.)
Done		Done	No work remains. Typically, content components will not be marked as “Done” until integrated into the final product.
Hold		Hold	Content is not being actively worked, but we expect work to continue in the future.

This page:

Elsewhere:

Ed-Fi Academy Development Project Tracker (Jira)
Ed-Fi Academy Board (also Jira)

Ed-Fi Academy Production

Content Workflow & Tracking