Presentation delivered at the 2012 STC Summit by Gavin Austin.

1. How Writers Can Thrive in Agile
Software Development
Gavin Austin
Lead Technical Writer

2. Safe Harbor
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3. About me: I’m a writer who likes to talk

4. Agile is…
Sprint Sprint Sprint
2-4 weeks 2-4 weeks 2-4 weeks

5. Scrum 101
Daily Stand-up
Sprint
2-4 weeks
Sprint Plan
Commitment Potentially shippable
Backlog
Retrospective

7. Why we went Agile
2000 2005 & 2006
 3 employees R&D  200+ employees R&D
 4 product releases  1 product release a year
 Releases on time  Releases not on time

8. Days between Major Releases
Features Delivered per Team
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

9. ADM (Agile) results
Features Delivered per Team
Days between Major Releases
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

10. Acceptance
“ ADM has delivered total visibility, total transparency and
unbelievable productivity… a complete win!
”
Steve Fisher
Executive Vice President, Technology
Salesforce.com

11. Challenges
“ Originally,organizations havedid not include documentation,
the methodology
but many figured out how to use it…
”
Alyssa Fox & Meredith Kramer
Mobile and Agile: The Floating Writer’s Survival Kit
© 2008 WinWriters, Inc.

12. Heartburn
1. Done!
2. Fiction!
3. Meetings!
4. Estimates!
5. Tracking tools!
6. Multiple teams!

13. Indigestion
1. No time!
2. No specs!
3. Terminology!
4. Team loyalties!
5. Context switching!

14. Unhappy Writers
80 80 78
70 66
60
52
50
42
40
30 31 30 R&D
23 DS
20
10
0
Are you Is agile Agile will Since the
satisfied with making your maintain or rollout, I'm
the rollout of team more improve the having a good
agile? effective? quality of our time.
products.

15. Implementation Strategies
• Class
• Patience
• Templates
• Tracking tool
• Pad estimates
• Clear definitions
• Hire more writers
• Extend doc deadlines

16. Daily Strategies
• Ask
• Email team
• Write fiction
• Revise fiction
• Skip meetings
• Doc “office hours”

17. Team Strategies
2. Barter
3. Doc “blitz”
4. Volunteer
5. Be wrong
6. Speak up
7. Self organizing
8. Shared service
9. Last line of defense

18. Benefits
• Features less complex
• Easier to document
• Clearer communication
• Know who does what
• Know whom to ask
• Fixed deadlines
• Fewer surprises

19. Benefits
• Doc has more impact
• Doc is more visible
• Learn what to expect
• Retrospectives fix problems
• Self determining
• More personable
• Team spirit

20. Happy Writers
70
62
60
50 46
40 Mar-07
30 30 Mar-08
24 23
20
14
10
0 0 0
The best time A good time Not much fun A terrible time

21. Questions?
Whitepaper:
http://www.ScrumAlliance.org