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

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Customers’ Agile requirements

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“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

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“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

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Can we meet the requirements

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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.

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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.”

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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!”

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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.

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Four-point strategy

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Checklist for Agile Technical Writer

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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

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□ 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

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□ 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

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□ 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

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□ 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

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□ 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

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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

sudhir.subudhi@outlook.com

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