Agile documentation development methodology
Giby Panicker and Judith Benjamin
1-Dec-2012
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Agenda
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Software Engineering Process Models
•
Waterfall vs Agile-a comparison
•
Agile evolution and principles
•
Scrum - an Agile method
•
Agile Best Practices
•
Benefits of working in Agile
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Software Engineering Process Models
•
Waterfall model
•
Spiral model
•
Agile development
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Traditional Method - Waterfall model
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Iterative model- Agile
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Waterfall vs Agile
Requirements
Analysis
Design
Test
Time
Implementation
Voice of the
Customer
Deployment
2-4 weeks iteration
Requirements
Deployment
Time
Agile method
Waterfall flow
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Waterfall and Agile - a comparison
Waterfall
Agile
Long detailed plan
Short term plan
Customer feedback at the end of the cycle. Constant feedback from the customers
Less customer satisfaction
Better customer satisfaction through early
and continuous delivery of valuable software
and meeting the right expectation
High risk to change in requirement
Adapt to change in requirement to address
the issues promptly
Predictable software
Working software in shorter timescale
Highly risky, often more costly and
generally less efficient
Less risky, low cost and more efficient
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Agile Evolution
Individuals and interactions
over processes and tools
Working software over
comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over
contract negotiation
Responding to change over
following a plan
Moving quickly and lightly
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Principles of Manifesto
Satisy the customer
Early and continuous delivery of working
software
Change in requirements
Adapting to change even late in the
cycle
Deliver working software
frequently
Deliver fully tested working software with
2-4 weeks iteration
Work together daily
Work together throughout the project
Work around motivated
individuals
Build projects around motivated individuals
and motivate them
Face-to-face
conversation
The most efficient and effective method of
conveying information to and within a
team
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Principles of Manifesto (contd…)
Working software
Working software is the primary
measure of progress
Sustainable development
Promote sustainable development.
Maintain constant pace.
Continuous attention
Continuous attention to technical
excellence
Simplicity
Simplicity is essential
Self organizing teams
Scrum teams
Tunes and adjusts to the
product behavior
The team reflects on how to become more
effective, then tunes and adjusts its
behavior accordingly
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Crystal
Lean
Scrum
XP
Kanban
DSDM
FDD
Agile - Many methods
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and others...
Scrum- an Agile method
Product Owner
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Product Backlog
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Agile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVdScd4m-x8
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Agile Documentation Best Practices
R
Planning
The techniques and
documentation deliverables are
well suited for documenting
products developed in agile
environment.
E
L
Documentation
E
A
Verification
S
E
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Planning Best Practices
Plan it well
Use the right
tool
• Estimate the features
• Consult the development team
• Answer standard questions
• Conduct a doc planning poker session
• Collaborate on estimates with other writers
• Reduce rework
• Get access to the same planning tool that the Agile
development team is using
• JIRA, Rally or XPlanner
• Documentation, development and QA tasks.
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Planning Best Practices
Manage your
tasks
• Create documentation tasks
• House all documentation stories in “Tech Pubs
Documentation”
• Create “Tech Pubs Overhead” component to log
overhead tasks
• Clarify on the number of iterations the documentation can
be completed after the development team’s completion of
the feature
Adapt right
methodologies
• Topic-oriented writing is authoring concise, self-contained
units of information about a specific topic
• Use a topic-oriented approach such as the Darwin
Information Typing Architecture (DITA) or Information
MappingTM
• Using Information Mapping and DITA enables to produce
right documentation at the right time
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Documentation Best Practices
Prioritize
Focus on
content
• Work on high-priority, low risk items
• Return to lower-priority or higher-risk items
• Aligning to feature priorities
• Convert user stories to task-oriented topics
• Task-oriented writing complements development’s use of
user stories
• Task-oriented writing is a necessity given the short iteration
cycle and often limited number of writing resources
• Helps writers achieve minimalism
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Verification Best Practices
Collaborate
• For each task, ask the QA team to create an equivalent task
for reviewing
• Request a “hardening” iteration
• Establish processes such as verification process, peer writer
install process, peer review process etc.
• Cross-functional review
Communicate
• Face-to-face communication
• Attend daily stand up meetings, sprint meetings, demos etc
• For teams that are not co-located find ways to communicate
as personally as possible in real-time:
• Instant Messaging
• Web cameras with video conferencing
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Working Together as a Team
Planning
Documentation
Verification
planning
poker
session
prioritize
the doc
tasks
access to
feature
tracking
tool
Ongoing
convert
Communication
reduce
user
at rework
all
phases
stories
into
topics
create
tasks for
QA to
review
request for
hardening
iteration
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create user
stories
similar to
product
topic
oriented
writing
establish
new
processes
Benefits of working in Agile
• Better integration of documentation with product
• Incremental development; reviews in chunks
• Early feedback from users
• Timely sharing and resolution of impediments in authoring
• Comprehensive insight into product changes and development
 Greater teamwork
 Improved quality
 Lowered cost
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Q&A
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