Our documentation team 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.

But 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?

In this talk, I present my personal agile story as a technical writer, and the story of how the Red Hat JBoss Fuse documentation team "agiled" ourselves, despite a non-agile development team and other adventures.

Transcript

1. 1 OUR DOCUMENTATION TEAM AGILE MANIFESTO Mikey Ariel Senior Technical Writer, Red Hat STXNext Tech Summit, March 2015
2. 2 Why are we here? Who am I and what do I want My personal agile story The Agile Fuse docs story Q & A
3. 3 Who am I? Technical writer at Red Hat Write the Docs EU community lead Scrum master and agile coach nOOb-friendly and inclusive Excited about all the things
4. 4 ag·ile adjective \ a-j l, - jī(- )l\ ˈ ə ˌ ə 1. marked by ready ability to move with quick easy grace 2. having a quick resourceful and adaptable character (Merriam-Webster dictionary)
5. 5 In the beginning... Red Hat acquires Fusesource, enter chaos Enter hyperactive docs lady, stage left Debut personal agile doc talk Enter Red Hat content services revolution, stage right
6. 6 Queue lightbulb! Mad scientist montage Agile Fuse docs 1.0 goes into production Enter content strategist / program manager Team grows from 3 to 9 writers
7. 7 Before...
8. 8 … After!
9. 9 … After!
10. 10 … After!
11. 11 What works? Sprints keep us on top of our tasks Kanban board provides transparency and clear goals Retrospectives uncover problems quickly Clear role division keeps us focused and effective The processes and tools serve us!
12. 12 What still needs work? Most of the team is new to agile Distributed team requires compromises Development is still chaotic Beurocracy still rears its ugly head Workflow is still fragile and needs lots of love
13. 13 QUESTIONS? COMMENTS? FLOWERS? TOMATOES? You can also ask me later here, here, here, and there: Email mariel@redhat.com Google+ mikeymay972@gmail.com Twitter @thatdocslady