ESCAPING THE WATERFALL

Presented by Casie OxfordSenior Content Managercoxford@zixcorp.com

http://www.linkedin.com/in/cassandraoxford/http://lanyrd.com/2014/society-for-technical-communication/sctdcc/

An Agile Case Study

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

My Background

• Time in this industry

• Time at company

• Time using Agile

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Our Process (Timeline)• Sprints - 1 week sprintsoSprint review

oDemo

• Story workshop – weekly or moreoStory

oEpics

oAcceptance criteria

• Scrum & standups – short meetings every day

• Scrum board

• Backlog

• Retrospective

• Release

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Why did we do it?

• Faster time to market

•More flexibility in requirements

•Better quality product

Benefits

•Can release documents sooner/faster/better

•We have input into the product

• Know things sooner

•We have concrete metrics

• Syncs us with other departments

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

What do we do?

Everything!

•We now use Agile to manage our whole department

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Examples:

Company Standups Board

Team Scrum Board

Documentation Board

How do we do it?

We use three categories:

1. New Product/Release Story

2. Documentation Enhancement

3. Documentation Defect

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

1. New Product/Release Story

•Doc requirements are defined during the story workshop as part of the story

•Review during the demo

•After code complete, we do a short documentation review if time allows

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

1. New Product/Release Story

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

1. New Product/Release Story

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

2. Documentation Enhancement

• Identified enhancements are entered into a documentation backlog

• Prioritized by management and targeted for a release

• Enhancements are added to the schedule as time allows

•Can use as filler

• Follows same processes

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

2. Documentation Enhancement

3. Documentation Defect

• Identified defects are entered into the backlog

• Prioritized by management and targeted for a release

• If it’s an emergency, we treat it as a patch

• Follows same processes

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

3. Documentation Defect

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Tips & Tricks

• Start when the project starts

• Try to make a clean break

• Leave it behind

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Tips & Tricks

• Dev and QA figured it out first oIt took them a year to get started

oWe started with their processes, then added our needs

• Become a team member oSit in the room, add value to the conversation

oRealize teams have different dynamics

• Doc is a team effortoAllow them to help

oPerfection is overrated!

Tips & Tricks

• Learn to write fiction

•Content reuse and single sourcing were MUSTS

•Be flexible (agile)oThis applies to everyone

oIf something isn’t working, try something else

• Shorten your review process

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

Future Goals

•Consistency across teams

•Documentation as acceptance tests

•Ratio estimates

• Technical Debt Days

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.

THANK YOU & QUESTIONS

©2014 Zix Corporation. All rights reserved.