Re: The Agile / Xtreme TW

[John Posada <jposada99 -at- gmail -dot- com>]

>>My slight experience with agile-like development has suffered from some
>>of the usual diseases that keep the writer out of the loop.

Having worked in, and having managed some writing projects within an
Agile team environment, all I can say to address this issue is:

Be more of a pain to the team by being outside than you would be if
you were on the inside.

- Be at every scrum that you can be, even if you aren't invited.
- Act like you are in the loop even if they don't think you are. That
includes doing everything you would do if you were in the loop. Don't
wait to be invited. Crash.
- At each planning session, submit your list of Stories and Tasks and
if they aren't incorporated, ask why. Ask why again, and again, and
again.
- Make sure that one of the development tasks is that they must
perform the review of the material that is submitted as part of that
iteration. By getitng this, they cannot close it and advance to the
next with the task still open.
- Understand when you are the pig and when you are the chicken and
respect the process.
- Do this all with all due respect until you get to the point where
your efforts are ignored, then notify the Product Manager and the
Marketing manager of your efforts and issues, and the possible impact
if you aren't included, because from a project perspective, the
success or failure of the project is their responsibility

-- 
John Posada
Senior Technical Writer
NYMetro STC President

Looking for the next gig.
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