RE: The Technical Writer vs. Agile Development Methodologies

Subject: RE: The Technical Writer vs. Agile Development Methodologies
From: "HSC Italian" <twins398 -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com, techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 15:18:41 -0600

After a very ?painful? experience working with a team of developers who are new to Agile and are using Agile based on how they ?think? they should use Agile and assuming how a writer fits in the picture. I was prompted to research what my role as a writer was in the Agile Process. I learned that, officially, there is no ?place? for writers in the Agile process because Agile was designed for developers, not writers.

In working with project managers, developers, and our quality department we are in the early stages of defining what the writer?s role is. One project manager (thankfully) is working with his team of developers to refine how they work so it works for all team members, writers included. As a result, in the user stories the developers are responsible for communicating on the Wiki pages how a customer is to use each given feature. Then, I (the writer), retrieve that information off the Wiki. If further explanation is needed, they have a designated SME who is responsible for doing a demo of the feature for me to clarify any uncertainties. Again, this is still in experiment-mode, but one thing that has occurred to me is that I need to unlearn how I?ve worked for the last 15 years because this Agile method ?wants? me to update the document as the iterations are finished, which isn?t so easy when I have three other pressing projects on my plate.

Beth Agnew has a wonderful article that she wrote on this, which was tremendously helpful, too. She sent me a copy when I posted a similar question to the list. Perhaps ask her for a copy of her article which was published a few years ago.

Thanks,
Heidi



From: "Kevin McGowan" <thatguy_80 -at- hotmail -dot- com>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: The Technical Writer vs. Agile Development Methodologies
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2006 14:28:21 -0500


Hi all,

Is anyone else out there struggling with a development team determined to use Agile Development methodologies? I'm trying to research on what the ideal role for the tech writer in all of this Agile madness.

In one of our courses, we actually had a trainer say something to the effect that end-user docs aren't a concern in agile... I know that's not exactly the best way to say it, but it seems that Agile methodology may well be suffering with a bias (intentional or not) against the tech writers who must keep up with all the Agile-ness to create end-user documentation.

I'm curious who out there has been through this. We're sorting out our roles here, but it's been a bit of a battle to get it all straight.

Kevin

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The Technical Writer vs. Agile Development Methodologies: From: Kevin McGowan

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