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
   

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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
   

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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
   

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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)
   

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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
   

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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
   

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7. 7
   Before...
   

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8. 8
   … After!
   

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9. 9
   … After!
   

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10. 10
    … After!
    

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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!
    

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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
    

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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
    

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