RE: The Technical Writer vs. Agile Development Methodologies

["HSC Italian" <twins398 -at- hotmail -dot- com>]

After a very ?painful? experience working with a team of developers who are 
new to Agile and are using Agile based on how they ?think? they should use 
Agile and assuming how a writer fits in the picture. I was prompted to 
research what my role as a writer was in the Agile Process. I learned that, 
officially, there is no ?place? for writers in the Agile process because 
Agile was designed for developers, not writers.

In working with project managers, developers, and our quality department we 
are in the early stages of defining what the writer?s role is. One project 
manager (thankfully) is working with his team of developers to refine how 
they work so it works for all team members, writers included. As a result, 
in the user stories the developers are responsible for communicating on the 
Wiki pages how a customer is to use each given feature. Then, I (the 
writer), retrieve that information off the Wiki. If further explanation is 
needed, they have a designated SME who is responsible for doing a demo of 
the feature for me to clarify any uncertainties. Again, this is still in 
experiment-mode, but one thing that has occurred to me is that I need to 
unlearn how I?ve worked for the last 15 years because this Agile method 
?wants? me to update the document as the iterations are finished, which 
isn?t so easy when I have three other pressing projects on my plate.

Beth Agnew has a wonderful article that she wrote on this, which was 
tremendously helpful, too. She sent me a copy when I posted a similar 
question to the list. Perhaps ask her for a copy of her article which was 
published a few years ago.

Thanks,
Heidi