How Agile Are You?

1. How Agile Are You? Technical Communicators in an Agile World

2. The Two Things That Have Changed My Job The Most In the past 15 years, these two developments have changed my daily work life tremendously: Demands of localization Adoption of Agile methodology

3. What Is Agile Development? Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan Whole Agile world: conferences, gurus, books, and training Agile is simply a methodology and mindset for creating software.

4. How Is Agile Different From Traditional Development? Traditional development, also called “Waterfall,” is more regulated, bureaucratic, and top-down oriented the process of flowing down through sequential steps - linear derived from manufacturing and construction heavy on design, specifications, up-front planning Many, many companies still use Waterfall methodology Some software professionals say Waterfall is better Predictability vs. Adaptability

5. Why Are Companies Adopting Agile? Waterfall methods are too slow, often 1-2 year cycles Allows for rapid change without starting all over Constant testing means finding bugs earlier (hopefully!) More involvement with customers Controversial point – Agile can be implemented for good or evil To get products to market faster and beat the competition.

6. Weird Agile Terminology Backlog – container for stories that need to be done Epics – a collection of stories Planning board/Kanban board – visualization of a sprint Scrum – an implementation of Agile (if a Scrum sprint equals an Agile iteration, the two methods are essentially the same) Spike – a short, time-boxed research story Sprint – a fixed duration of time in which to complete stories Stories – chunks of work, usually one feature, assigned points Velocity – relative number describing team output The pig and chicken fable It is just jargon, don’t be intimidated!

7. Planning/Kanban Board

8. Scum Roles Scrum Master – organizes the process, removes impediments, acts as a buffer Product Owner – voice of the customer, writes stories, organizes the backlog Team – cross-functional group of 5-9 people that deliver the product (manager, engineers, QA, writers, tech support representative, etc.)

9. Agile Rituals Planning meeting – 1-2 hour meeting that takes place at the beginning of the sprint Daily standup – 15 minute meeting that occurs at the same time, in the same place every day Retrospective – 1 hour meeting that takes place at the end of the sprint Backlog grooming – 1-2 hour meeting to analyze stories in the backlog Demo – 1-2 hour meeting at the end of the sprint to demonstrate the features completed during the sprint

10. Scrum Tools Planning/Kanban Board Stickies, lots of stickies Big paper on easels or walls Whiteboards Excel or Project Specific Agile tools (Rally, Greenhopper with JIRA) Homegrown tools

11. All Companies Do Scrum In A Different Way What does it mean to “go Agile” or “do Agile” in today’s world? Is a company really doing Agile? If you are interviewing, ask questions like the following: How long are your sprints? Do you have daily standup meetings? Do you have product owners? How do you manage your backlog? Some companies claim to be doing Agile, but are not Going Agile can be a long, tough process - requires careful training, hiring, and, sometimes, extra help (people quit)

12. Technical Writers Need To Be On The Team Are you a pig or a chicken? You have to be a pig and you must have a seat at the table If you are not on the team, the team will have no time for you and the Scrum Master could block your access

13. Technical Writers On Multiple Teams You may have a seat at several tables. Certain roles are sometimes put on multiple teams: Scrum Masters Product Owners QA Writers Can you handle it? Be honest. Argue for a certain ratio, say eight developers to one writer. You may need more writers.

14. Technical Writers On Remote Teams This one is tough, very tough. Is the team in the same time zone, say, San Diego and San Jose? If the team is in a different time zone, is it an awkward difference? London is 8 hours ahead, so meetings at 8am/4pm Shanghai is 16 hours ahead, meetings at 4pm/10am Is there a language barrier? How will you attend meetings and obtain information? Visit your remote team

15. One Agile Team’s Sprint Schedule And this is just one team (in London!) – what if you have 2 or 3?

16. How Do Writers Write In An Agile Workplace? Fast! In Agile, you document small features that add up to something larger (bottom up) Write fiction Get your work done within the sprint – absolutely critical For every story, there should be a doc task and the story can’t close until ALL tasks (coding, QA, docs) are done

17. Tools For Writing In An Agile Environment There is no one solution DITA, where you write in small chunks, can sometimes nicely mirror the work done in sprints – requires a lot of coordination, an editor, and an information architect Try a wiki Invent a new documentation tool Figure out a hybrid (for example, a wiki with PDF creation)

18. Be An Active Member Of The Team Sit with your engineering team Participate in all meetings (or as many as you can) Speak up in all meetings in daily stand up, say when you are blocked and who is blocking you – ask questions right after stand up! in planning meetings, describe the documentation effort for a story (a name change is NOT search and replace!) in retrospective meetings, be honest about what did not work (see next slide)

19. Be Honest In Retrospective Meetings and Activities Mad, Sad, Glad Agile Starfish

20. What Does It Take To Be Successful In An Agile Shop? Darrin Ladd, Scrum coach from Big Visible, did a survey of technical writers in Agile shops and asked what they needed to be successful.

21. Cons For Technical Writers In An Agile Environment Hectic, especially with multiple or remote teams You cannot hide Crunch time frequently Work with little privacy Can be difficult for introverts Schedule life around sprints Schedule vacation way ahead Don’t get sick

22. Pros For Technical Writers In An Agile Environment Team camaraderie You know what team is doing You contribute to the team every day (input, write, QA) SMEs have an incentive to give you information Work with innovative people of all ages and experience Possibly become a Scrum Master or product owner

23. Resources Scrum Alliance – www.scrumalliance.org (great article titled “A Writer’s Guide to Surviving Agile Software Development”) Lots of books about Scrum and Agile, but none specifically about technical writers in an Agile environment More and more articles appearing on the internet about technical writing and Scrum (very few in 2009) Sessions at WritersUA and STC conference

24. Technical Writers Rule! Contact me: suzanne@suzannesmith.com