Create and Maintain Scrum

Documentation EffectivelyAlexandre Boutin

Lean & Agile Coach - Scrum Master and Practitioner “Process Strategy for Yahoo International Engineering”

a.boutin@agiletoyou.com: +33 (0)6 45 40 23 17

Objectives

What I would like you to take out?

An “agile way” to look at documentation

Effective ideas and practices

SCRUMDOCUMENTATION

Documentation Challenges

• Time and cost consuming– To create – To maintain (more!)

• Monitoring– Versions– Accessibility

• Delivery– Validation– Ownership

“Don’t confuse documentation with understanding”Jim Highsmith

Common Guidelines

“Travel Light”

Autonomation

Visibility

“Travel Light”

• Principles always to keep in mind when you are writing or maintaining a document

• K.I.S.S.– Keep It Small & Simple– Simplicity, the art of maximizing the work you will

not have to do

• Y.A.G.N.I.– You aren’t Gonna Need It– Reviewing draft document is not WASTE!

• 2 A4 pages

Autonomation

• Technical Solutions– JavaDoc, Executable Requirements…

• Pictures– “A Picture is worth a thousand words”– Capture technical design on dashboard

and include the photo in the document

• “In” the product– User Manual integrated in final product

Visibility

• Collaborative Wiki– Everybody can access and update

any documents

• Dashboard– Much more effective than

traditional reporting

• Demo– “Working product” rather than

“Documentation”

Agile Process

• Include documentation activities in definition of “Done” (Story, Sprint or Release)

• Consider documentation writer as a member of the team

• Be as inventive as possible about ways to not produce documentation

“The primary goal is to deliver software; the secondary goal is to set up for the following game”

Alistair Cockburn

ManagingExisting

Documentation

Documentation Values

Customer?

Needs?

Documentation

Reuse?

Value added for Customer?

• Focus on Customers – Customers are users– Customers have money– Customers do promotion

• Put on customers glasses– Evaluate how much each

document adds value for customers

Evaluate value for Customer

• Create your own list of customer values• Assign a weight for each value• Evaluate each document

Fit for Purpose

Usability Deploy. Stability Scalability Maint. Certif. Value

20% 30% 5% 10% 5% 5% 25% 100%

Document A 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 15%

Document B 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 55%

Document C 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 20%

… …

Needs for documents

ASK: Who is reading/using it?

Evaluate needs for documents

• Pragmatic– This person reads/uses the document and provides

valuable feedback to the team

• Mandatory– We have to deliver this document (by contract,

according to the norm …)

• Disillusion – Nobody is reading it, but you know, it’s in our quality

process

• Foolish– I wrote it and someone should read it for sure. I’m

saying this for years now, will someone start doing things right in this company

Keep this document

Ok, let’s try to reduce it to a minimum

Stop doing it that way!

I can help you, who is the quality director?

Reuse of Documents

• A document is written for a specific purpose at a specific time

• Do not maintain all existing documentation just because it exists

• Communicate rather than document

Evaluate reuse of documents

• Reuse Metrics– Average time between 2 versions– Longevity of last version– Number of time the document is downloaded– Number of time the document is really used by

the team– Number of time the document is reused by other

teams

• At Yahoo, most documents are in a Wiki and employees accesses are collected

Evaluate Document Values

• Define acceptance criteria– Document meets criteria

• Keep it• Simplify it• Evaluate alternative options for producing same

information

– Document does not meet criteria• Stop producing this document• Change your process

A SIMPLEPRACTICE

Simplification Meeting

• All team members in a room – 1 document template

• Objectives– Keep all sections– Remove all information that does not add value

• Duplication of information• Reduce long text

– Find better ways for producing information• Screenshots or photos

• Benefits– Document is simpler– Team shares a common definition of the content – Later document production will be faster

THANK YOU

Alexandre BoutinLean & Agile Coach - Scrum Master and Practitioner

Founder AgileToYoua.boutin@agiletoyou.com : +33 (0)6 45 40 23 17