Comprehensive single requirement docs vs. multiple atomic ones 11 SRS for an Agile project 0 Tracking requirements 4 Need help- Documentation for non-technical people using Agile
Writing documentation the agile way 1 Meet launch deadlines by documenting faster Agile can involve the writers in the project from the start, in a process known as continuous documentation. ... 2 Reduce your workload Documenting in parallel with development makes it easier for engineers to answer questions. ... 3 Improve features and discover bugs
Often, agile projects will capture 'requirements' in the form of use cases, user stories, scenarios, or other user-centric forms. The requirements will also tend to be broken down into those being worked on in the current iteration and those that still need to be worked on - in Scrum, that's the sprint backlog and the product backlog.
In traditional software development projects, there is comprehensive documentation which is perceived as a risk reduction strategy. In agile projects, a high level of documentation increases the overall project risk as it lowers down the adaptability to changes.
Agile documentation is an approach to create concise documents that serve the situation at hand. In traditional software development projects, there is comprehensive documentation which is perceived as a risk reduction strategy.
The purpose of agile documents is to help the support and operations staff with easy to understand, concise information. Documentation that facilitates knowledge transfer is only possible when effective communication with all the project stakeholders is there throughout the project.
In an agile project, there are executable specifications in the form of tests.
The documentation should be just good enough to serve the purpose of dealing with the situation at hand. This requires building larger documents from smaller ones. You can create Wikis sort of documentation to create different single pages for single topics.
The agile documentation supports the maintenance developers to understand how the system works so that they can evolve it over time. There is no use of documenting things which will not be of any use.
The higher the number of pages in the document, the higher would be the chances of error. A short and concise document is easier to maintain and lesser prone to errors. In the agile documents, the high-level overview may not have detailed information but it does provide a map to dive in the source code.
The most common support for functional documentation in agile managed projects is the User Story. In order to give developers the requirements on how to implement, User Stories aggregate just-enough information, described in the following format:
Remember that in agile, User Stories are not supposed to be exhaustive requirements specifications on a small chunk of information, but instead are expected to provide the guidelines on what to implement, as a promise of future collaboration between the Product Owner and the team on what to implement.
The Agile Manifesto states that we value: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools. Working software over comprehensive documentation. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. Responding to change over following a plan. Although it does refer to documentation, agile principles do not give any rigid guideline on how to document.
So, when documenting, keep in mind to document no more and no less than necessary, and when necessary. Remind your team to document just enough and just in time.
User Stories must be accepted by stakeholders before being planned in the sprint, which means that at the point they are ready to be planned on the sprint, they are supposed to be a reliable source of information (requirements) for developers to know what to implement.
If the writer has programming experience, all the better, because they can be given source code to study and can concoct any sample code. 5. No person is a silo. One of agile's strengths is that the regular scrums give every team member a clear picture of what's going on over the entire project.
A tech writer with an engineering background can talk shop with the software engineers and get the key points without requiring someone to explain in detail to the writer what is going on. An engineer can readily learn—if they don't already know—the technologies the project uses.
For a first-of-its-kind product where most of the material must be written from scratch, continuous documentation ensures that the large volume of documentation gets written, reviewed, and delivered on time.
If you find yourself questioning the budget, consider this: you can either invest up front and get the content you need, or you can pay support costs on the back end, because the documentation effort was starved for resources and now you have poor or nonexistent documentation.