In order to level playing field with large chains, independent hotel needs to embrace Internet and understand that guests want to make their travel arrangements on web. To do this, hotel needs a good web site that reflects their property. It is not enough however just to have web site – it needs to be promoted and advertised to encourage visitors. Once you have your potential guest online you need to be able to sell to him – in same way that you may purchase books, CDs, and even your grocery shopping! The hotel needs to take booking there and then, and, upsell other items such as an evening meal, tickets to local attractions etc. And of course by doing it online you can even sell whilst you sleep!

The question is of course, can a small guesthouse with only five letting rooms afford such a facility? Until recently, answer would have been no. Or, it may have been that you could use a third party system which charged commission, more you sold, more you paid! Programmes such as EUBookings have changed this. This programme allows hotels to pay a small annual fee of £99 & VAT (plus £90 & VAT implementation) for which they can add their availability and rates. The system is totally adaptable so if you insist on guests staying two nights if they stay on Saturday night, it handles it; or, if you have a minimum stay of seven nights it handles it. EUBookings will fulfil needs of small hotelier at a price which is affordable.

It is clear that small hotels and b&b’s have been slower to tap vast potential of Internet. This potential has been demonstrated by budget airlines positively. The larger hotel chains have not been as successful and have their own issues which have created difficulties in their online activities. The independent hotel and b&b does now have a fantastic opportunity to compete on an equal footing with these larger businesses and should aim to take more than their fair share of this emerging travel market.

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In these steps, I outline maintenance process, which begins when someone needs a change and ends when your user accepts your changes.

As you can imagine, changing documentation is frequently complex and may involve many people.

For example, imagine task of updating documentation for applications in complex electronics, aerospace, law, medical, insurance, etc. Or, how about updating flight-prep manual for a commercial airliner?

The maintenance process above appears linear. But again, you'll undergo many steps and iterative loops.

For example,

You may need to clarify Change Request. You may require more analysis of Design Reviews. You may need to rewrite your Standards Audit. Your users may fail to accept results, etc.

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Someone, "Maintainer(s)" must do work.

This Maintainer must make changes within context of existing documentation. Maintenance people often find this most challenging problem.

The older documentation, more challenging and time-consuming maintenance effort. But normally, maintenance takes you less time than development.

Your development effort may span several months. You may schedule PERFECTIVE maintenance in cycles of one to six months. But, you may require CORRECTIVE maintenance within hours.

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Functionally, you can divide documentation maintenance activities into three categories:

PERFECTIVE, ADAPTIVE, and CORRECTIVE.

Let me explain...

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PERFECTIVE MAINTENANCE

"Perfective maintenance" is when you make changes, insertions, deletions, modifications, extensions, and enhancements to improve understandability or maintainability.

You generally do Perfective maintenance because you have new or changing requirements, or you may need to fine-tune documentation.

Fine-tuning is an excellent way to introduce a new writer to your documentation. This will reduce your chance of serious errors later.

Both failures and successes of your documentation require Perfective maintenance. If your documentation works well, users want more features; if your documentation works poorly, you must fix it.

When you perform Perfective maintenance on poorly written documentation, you can dramatically reduce resource requirements by making your documentation more maintainable.

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ADAPTIVE MAINTENANCE

"Adaptive Maintenance" is when you adapt documentation to changes in user environment. Environmental changes are normally beyond control of writer and consist mainly of changes to:

Rules, laws, and regulations that affect documentation. Typically you must quickly make these changes to meet dates established by rules and regulations.

Equipment configurations, such as, new computers, new terminals, local printers, etc. Usually, you want to take advantage of improved features and/or pricing. You normally perform this maintenance on a scheduled basis.

Data formats, file structures, etc. You may require extensive maintenance if these items were not properly designed and implemented. If you can isolate changes to specific modules, maintenance may have less impact. If not, effort can be both lengthy and costly.

System software, operating systems, compilers, utilities, etc. In these cases, you usually perform maintenance on a schedule.

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CORRECTIVE MAINTENANCE

"Corrective Maintenance" is when you must fix errors - sometimes immediately.

Generally, you'll find three types of errors:

Design errors.

These errors include incomplete or faulty design because of incorrect, incomplete, or unclear descriptions, or when writer does not fully understand user's needs.

Logic errors.

Often, logic errors occur when user instructions and/or unusual data combinations are not tested during development or maintenance. These errors, usually attributable to designer or previous maintainer, include invalid assumptions, tests, instructions, or conclusions, or faulty logic flow, and incorrect implementation.

Writing Errors.

The writer causes these errors. These errors include incorrect implementation or design logic, or incorrect use of special terms. While these errors may be result of negligence or carelessness, they are usually easiest to fix.

NOTE: Many managers consider maintenance to include changing specifications or adding new capabilities.

Fascinating stuff, eh?

============================================================ 5. Call to Action ============================================================

As I've said before, I'm a fanatic about documenting business processes.

Find out for yourself! You have nothing to lose.

Together, let's document what you want, how you want it, and when you want it. We will discuss various creative approaches before project begins.

Mike Hayden Principal/Consultant Your partner in streamlining business.

For more information, Email: mailto:info@seniormanagementservices.com Website: http://www.SeniorManagementServices.com

(c) 2003 Mike Hayden, All rights reserved. You may use material from Profitable Venture Tactics eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live website link and email link.