My Personal Tech-Writing Agile Manifesto

ag·ile adjective \ˈa-jəl, -ˌjī(-ə)l\ (Merriam-Webster dictionary)

1. marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace
2. having a quick resourceful and adaptable character

When the Agile Manifesto was first presented to the geeksphere, many thought it was the hottest thing since striped RAID. Since then, agile software development has morphed, evolved, branched out, and yes - been abused.

So what *does* make agile methodologies work, and how can I make them work for me? How can I build my own personal, portable Agile Manifesto, that I can apply to any working environment at any company? And what does all of this have to do with technical writing anyway?

Transcript

1. 1 MY PERSONAL TECH-WRITING AGILE MANIFESTO Mikey Ariel Senior Technical Writer, Red Hat LinuxTag, May 2014
2. 2 Why Are We Here? • How agile software development started • What can the Agile Manifesto do for my docs • Where did agile development get its bad reputation • The Scrum, Kanban, and lean development power trio
3. 3 Who Am I? • Technical writer • Former Scrum master (SAFe / ScrumBan) • Documentarian • Opinionated and passionate
4. 4 Who am I Not? • Engineer • Expert on agile development • Veteran of open source • Big fan of slides
6. 6 History of the Agile World, Part 1 • Chasing waterfalls • Hardware is dead, long live software • Ain’t nobody got time for that! • SaaS before it was cool • Iterative AND incremental? Incredible!
8. 8 Ask What the Agile Manifesto Can Do for You Individuals and interactions over Processes and tools read: Get to know your stakeholders
9. 9 Ask What the Agile Manifesto Can Do for You Working software over Comprehensive documentation read: Document and learn by example
10. 10 Ask What the Agile Manifesto Can Do for You Customer collaboration over Contract negotiation read: Find your customers
11. 11 Ask What the Agile Manifesto Can Do for You Responding to change over Following a plan read: Keep up with the development cycle
12. 12 The Scrum Playbook • Sprints: Time-boxing abstract timelines • Backlog: How good is “good enough” • Planning and retrospective: Staying accountable • DoD: Crossing all the t's • Scrum master: Herding all the cats
13. 13 Kanban Board Games • Cards represent tasks • Columns represent development stages • Blockers sound the alarms early • Board is accessible and transparent to all • Analysis and integration with tracking tools
15. 15 Lean Mean Writing Machine • Finger on the pulse: Decide late, deliver fast • Keep the WIP down: Stop starting and start finishing • Sharpen your axe: Refactoring and scaling
16. 16 Where is the Fail? • Power to the people... who don't want it • Method tailoring or fear of change? • Scrum of scrums of scrums of scrums • Yo dawg, we heard you like meetings... • Same %&$#, different names
18. 18 QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? COMPLIMENTS? TOMATOES? You can also ask me later here, here, here, and there: Email mariel@redhat.com Google+ mikeymay972@gmail.com Twitter @thatdocslady