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Establishing documentation delivery as a practice in Agile
Sudhir Subudhi 1
Session outline
• Customers’ Agile requirements
• Can we meet the requirements
• Four-point strategy
• Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
• Q&A
2
Customers’ Agile requirements
3
“We need to see and monitor the progress of software throughout the
development, and provide feedback and suggest improvements.”
Customer collaboration
“We can’t wait for the whole software to be developed at one go, we
can release it part by part or feature by feature gradually; and can go
live as early as possible”
Incremental delivery of working software
4
“We are directly in communication with the industry, customers and
end-users. We want to incorporate instant feedback, functionality add-
ons, or change requests in the software, as and when we receive those.”
Responding to change
“We need a fast time-to-market approach to release software, and can’t
compromise with this as we will lose business to competitors
otherwise.”
Fast time-to-market or turnaround
5
Can we meet the requirements
6
Customer collaboration
“Going by the customer
survey, the product owner
wants to improve the design
or structure of the content.”
“The Product Owner
wants to change the
template of the Data
Sheet.”
The customer or customer representative needs to stay engaged with the team.
7
The project needs to define multiple customer engagement points.
Incremental delivery of working documentation
The design of the documentation needs to support continuous and incremental development and delivery.
“We need a well-designed use-
case and scenario document
on each of the functionalities
that is delivered throughout
the release.”
“We need 6 webinars this
month on advanced
documentation methods, and
4 in each of the subsequent
months till December.”
8
Responding to change
The documentation needs to welcome and scope for defects, feedback, improvement, or change requests at any time.
“We also need the Browse
Sequences in the online
help.”
“Just received a customer
raised defect! The
configuration for the video
setup is not working!”
9
Fast time-to-market or turnaround
“Today, the client has
shared that they also need
e-learning videos of the
product, in this release!”
“Suyog’s company wants to
migrate to DITA. They have
asked for a Proof of Concept
or a prototype from us by
early next week.”
The project needs to include expert and motivated Technical Communicators.
The project needs to have effective methods to plan, organize, manage, and communicate among the members on documentation aspects.
The design or architecture of the documentation must be excellent.
10
Four-point strategy
11
1. Productize all documentation deliverables
Define all documentation deliverables, their content scope, delivery medium, targeted audience, and other attributes.
Use a number scheme to distinctly identify the deliveries.
Verify the productized documentation deliverables in the software build, shippable items list, and version control systems.
12
2. Quantify all documentation requirements or tasks, and add them to backlogs
Discover each and every documentation requirement, and add it to the backlog; then push them through the release planning.
Find out all small or big documentation tasks, estimate them, and schedule them in the project plan or iteration plan.
13
3. Mobilize people to deliver on the documentation tasks
Create awareness that it’s in our collective benefit if we deliver on the documentation tasks at individual capacity.
Represent the documentation side and advocate for documentation.
14
Convince the senior management, persuade the cross-functional teams and lead the team virtually.
4. Optimize process artifacts and communication channels
Alter and optimize the process artifacts and communication methods to scope for documentation tasks and Technical Communicators.
Use the artifacts and communication methods to achieve adequate focus and monitoring on the progress of documentation tasks.
15
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
16
Release Planning Meeting
“Great! So we could close all
pending content defects for
Messaging Services in this
release! Let’s see what’s the
estimate, and the release dates!”
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
17
□ Attend the meeting.
□ Understand the scheduled
requirements (user stories,
change requests and defects).
□ Participate with the team to
estimate the requirements at
high level (in story points or
any other units).
□ Takes a note of the release plan.
□ Raise concerns if any.
□ Commit for the release.
“We can complete the Story to
add content for XYZ Toolkit, and
Defect QC32356. I have outlined
the detailed tasks and acceptance
criteria for these items.”
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
18
□ Attend the meeting.
□ Participate with the team to select
requirements for the sprint.
□ Understand sprint goal and theme.
□ Verify that the documentation
completion is clearly defined through
the acceptance criteria.
□ Breakdown the documentation
requirements into granular and
independent tasks.
□ Estimate each documentation task in
hours and schedule them.
□ Commit for the sprint.
Sprint Planning Meeting
Daily Scrum Meeting
“I am Vicky, the Technical
Communicator. Yesterday, I got
the Technical Spec for XYZ
Toolkit from the vendor. I don’t
have any impediments today.”
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
19
□ Attend the meeting.
□ Share what you did yesterday.
□ Share what you plan to do today.
□ Share blockers if any.
Sprint Review Meeting
“We could not work on Defect
QC32356 due to unavailability
of the client contact person. We
need to move it to next sprint.”
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
20
□ Attend the meeting.
□ Participate with the team and walk
through the completed user stories
and defects.
□ Verify the documentation against
the acceptance criteria for the
completed items.
□ Suggest marking stories incomplete
if documentation acceptance
criteria are not met.
□ Verify the documentation
deliverables in the software build, in
the repository or version control
system.
□ Take note of the action items on
documentation.
Retrospective Meeting
“I noticed some
inconsistencies in the
metadata of the ditamap file.
I think we must review and
improve it.”
Checklist for Agile Technical Writer
21
□ Attend the meeting.
□ Share things that helped in last iterations
to progress better.
□ Share difficulties faced in last iterations
that prevented documentation progress.
□ Evaluate the process and practices and
propose plans for improvement.
□ Share if the Action Points on
documentation lapses are not closed on
time.
Q&A
22
Institute of Advanced Content Engineering
We can discuss Agile further in my LinkedIn group:
http://in.linkedin.com/in/sudhirsubudhi
http://www.slideshare.net/sudhira.tw
sudhir.subudhi
sudhir43
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Thank you.