Agile, SCRUM and Technical Writing

Subject: Agile, SCRUM and Technical Writing
From: "Gillespie, Terilyn" <Terilyn -dot- Gillespie -at- ddiworld -dot- com>
To: <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com>
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:49:33 -0500

John,

Can you tell me the name of the speaker or the title(s) she has written?
We are starting to ease into the Agile framework, specifically using the
Feature-Driven methodology and I am very interested on what people are
doing, from a technical writing perspective, in such environments.

I have read a few articles that promote the "just in time" documentation
philosophy, going as far to say that comprehensive requirements and
functional specification are over kill, and that creating and
maintaining these documents can overburden a software development
project. Scott Ambler, from www.agilemodeling.com tells us: "One study
found that the creation of detailed requirements documents early in a
project and the change management procedures associated with doing so is
the leading cause of failure on IT projects. Another study found that
the creation of detailed design models had no effect on the success of a
software development."

In this or a similar article, he suggests: "Agile acceptance test
suites form a significant portion of the requirements documentation and
developer test suites the design documentation. We follow AM's Single
Source Information practice by having our tests do double-duty as
specifications and therefore we require significantly less external
documentation."

Is anyone working like this in practice?
How is it changing your approach to documentation?
Have you changed the way you write funcitonal specifications? If so,
can you describe how or what has changed?
Anyone working specifically in a feature-driven environtment? Are you
using the client-valued function: <action> <result> <object>?

Any experiences, advise or discussion welcomed! TIA


Terilyn Gillespie
Technical Communications Specialist
Development Dimensions International, Inc.(DDI)
1225 Washington Pike
Bridgeville, PA 15017
412.220.2614
terilyn -dot- gillespie -at- ddiworld -dot- com

Unleashing Executive Talent. Hiring & Promoting The Best.
Developing Extraordinary Leaders. Discover how at www.ddiworld.com


Message: 32
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:08:58 -0800 (PST)
From: John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com>
Subject: RE: When you hear the Axe in the dark...
To: technical writing plus <doc-x -at- earthlink -dot- net>,
techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Message-ID: <615007 -dot- 52569 -dot- qm -at- web35408 -dot- mail -dot- mud -dot- yahoo -dot- com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

<snip>

BTW...just as closure to a question I asked in this forum a few weeks
ago, as Program Chair for the NY Metro STC, I went ahead and
selected, for our March 29th meeting, a speaker who has addressed
Agile and Scrums specifically from a technical writer's perspective.
In fact, she has published on this very thing in IEEE and has spoken
publicly about it.

Thanks for everyone's input on the question.

John Posada
Senior Technical Writer

"I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never
actually known what the question is."




^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Create HTML or Microsoft Word content and convert to Help file formats or
printed documentation. Features include single source authoring, team authoring,
Web-based technology, and PDF output. http://www.DocToHelp.com/TechwrlList

Now shipping: Help &amp; Manual 4 with RoboHelp(r) import! New editor,
full Unicode support. Create help files, web-based help and PDF in up
to 106 languages with Help &amp; Manual: http://www.helpandmanual.com

---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- infoinfocus -dot- com -dot-

To unsubscribe send a blank email to
techwr-l-unsubscribe -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
or visit http://lists.techwr-l.com/mailman/options/techwr-l/archive%40infoinfocus.com


To subscribe, send a blank email to techwr-l-join -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com

Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.


Follow-Ups:

Previous by Author: Re: Rant continued from previous page (was Re: Another Word guruquestion)
Next by Author: Technical Review Software
Previous by Thread: Book about salary negotiations
Next by Thread: Re: Agile, SCRUM and Technical Writing


What this post helpful? Share it with friends and colleagues:


Sponsored Ads