Technical Documentation in Agile Methodology

In any product development, it is often perceived that the Documentation discipline plays the role of second fiddle to the development activity in the agile model. In its reality, it would be an understatement to say so, as without the Documentation discipline, it would be very tough for any product to be successful.

In the earlier days, the Documentation discipline used to have a minimal presence in the development of any product. In today’s world, both these domains play a key role in the success of a product.

So, what exactly is documentation? Documentation can be described as a process which makes any product live. In other words, one would say: Documentation brings the product to life.

Now, at what stage does documentation come into the picture in a typical agile model? After any new feature is developed/enhanced and passes the Quality Assurance validation, it is the time to document the new feature or an enhancement of an existing feature.

The typical deliverables of documentation of any product include:

• A Getting Started Guide,

• An Installation Checklist,

• An Installation and Configuration Guide,

• Product Overview Documents

• Product User Manuals

• Product Installation Guides

• Product Data Sheets

• Product Release Notes

• Application Notes

• Product Troubleshooting Guides

• Training material including slides and system diagrams

• An Administrator’s Guide, and

• A Release Notes.

As is the case with the development, all the documentation has to be thoroughly reviewed before it is finally made available for a release along with a respective product.

Each and every fragment of documentation must and should satisfy a constraint: DoD i.e. Definition of Done.

Any documentation is termed to have passed a Definition-of-Done if it satisfies the following conditions:

• All the relevant documentation for a feature/enhancement is complete.

Padma Swaroop Mandapaka

Technical Documentation in Agile Methodology

• Completes the technical review for that fragment.

• Completes the peer reviews for that fragment.

Now, the bigger question which strikes every one of us is about the role of a Documentation member within a Scrum Team.

In an Agile Model, the role of a Documentation member is not restricted to a particular task or an action item. A Documentation member plays a larger role, which helps in improving the efficiency of the Scrum Team.

A Documentation member can contribute to Scrum Team in the following ways:

• Conduct the daily Scrum meetings.

• Conduct the Sprint Planning and the Retrospective meetings.

• Coordinate with the team to write effective user stories.

As the Agile Model involves in user stories and the subsequent tasks related to it, an effective and a clear user story makes the life of a documentation member that much easier.

• Work and assist in creating, editing, and reviewing comprehensive technical documents such as user guides, online help, in-app documents and technical specifications

• Coordinate with Software Engineers to obtain an in-depth understanding of the platform, its features and updates.

• Analyse the information elicited to create accurate and reliable material that can be understood by technical and non-technical users.

• Help review and maintain technical documents to ensure its consistency and alignment with the latest version of the platform

• Take active part in the Sprint planning meetings in identifying the scope of the user story.

To Summarize:

• In the years gone by, Documentation discipline used to have little importance in the overall development of a product

• In the Agile Methodology, the role of the Documentation member has improved to a great extent, and is widely recognized within the Scrum Team.