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Agile Myths-Is Agile anti-documentation ?

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SHADAV MOHAMMAD ANSARI PMO| ITC INFOTECH INDIA PVT. Ltd. New Delhi, Delhi, India
In Last few years several myths have formed around Agile delivery , one of it "Is Agile anti-documentation ?"
What do you think ?
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SHADAV MOHAMMAD ANSARI PMO| ITC INFOTECH INDIA PVT. Ltd. New Delhi, Delhi, India
Jan 10, 2019 9:24 PM
Replying to Deepesh Rammoorthy
...
For me Agile is about getting the stakeholders together as often as possible and reaching a face to face agreement on what document is to be produced, Who will produce it , how will it be reviewed and who needs a document and whether that document is needed on this particular project.
There has to be a clear discussion and clarification on why a document is needed OR why it is not justifiable to produce a particular document and this must be agreed with the Team and stakeholders.

lay it out clearly as a task on the Kanban Board with a person responsible. It sets up clear accountability and no one in the project team can challenge about lack of awareness and significance of or agreement on that particular document

There are some documents like User Requirements, System Support Plans, Solution Architecture documents, Project management plans which are non negotiable. You can absolutely be flexible in the format and presentation but everyone must know that these are to be produced and where they exist and they make sense to whichever team that will need to use them.

if the auditors require evidence that a Business Process or software affects people's lives or could pose a litigation threat and the organisation may get periodically audited for it, such documentation absolutely must be produced without exceptions, regardless of whether you are running an Agile or Waterfall project BUT with the agreed level and complexity of information needed.

Contrast this approach to a disjointed model where a BA produces a word document with 150 requirements and then asks 15 reviewers to give their comments and the document keeps travelling endlessly through reviews and after finalization of the document, you find that some requirements are no longer relevant!! That's what they mean when they say "Working software over comprehensive documentation". Produce what will absolutely impact the day to day function of the application in terms of design, requirements , architecture, testing and document it and don't waste time over documenting those bits that will never be used.
Well explained . Thanks for your good points.
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