Mitigating the Controversy – Balancing Documentation Vs. code in Agile Projects Using DITA and the
More than 76% of all software development projects today are developed using agile methods, which have roots in the agile manifesto postulated back in 2001.
According to the agile manifesto “working software is the primary measure of progress” and this is why for example Scrum targets to have a potentially shippable product at the end of every Sprint (development increment). But how does this relate to documentation, which is an integral part of the software and, in particular, of the software deliverable?
Furthermore, the agile manifesto values “working software over comprehensive documentation” and “individuals and interactions over processes and tools”. But what does this mean for technical writers and especially for the documentation in an agile project?
The session combines DITA, the DITA Open Toolkit (DITA-OT) with the latest tooling trends in software development to a baseline, moderate-cost infrastructure supporting a continuous documentation approach that resolves the above controversy. In alignment with an agile setup, all members of a team ─including the technical writer as well as the developer ─ can collaborate in a joined effort to produce a high quality, consistent, non-redundant and accurate documentation of value.
The session uses an open source project published on GitHub to demonstrate the approach and the available features.
What can attendees expect to learn?
The session will demonstrate the utilisation of DITA and it’s ecosystem to apply high documentation standards in the context of agile projects in software development.
Meet the Presenter
Karsten Klein is founder and CTO of metaeffekt GmbH in Heidelberg, Germany. In his professional career Karsten gained in-depth insights in compliance aspects of software development and software delivery in agile development settings.
Karsten envisions to share tools, insights and experiences with the community and the software developing industries.