Best Practices for Agile/Lean Documentation

Ideally, an agile document is just barely good enough, or just barely sufficient, for the situation at hand. Documentation is an important part of agile software development projects, but unlike traditionalists who often see documentation as a risk reduction strategy, agilists typically see documentation as a strategy which increases overall project risk and therefore strive to be as efficient as possible when it comes to documentation. Agilists write documentation when that's the best way to achieve the relevant goals, but there often proves to be better ways to achieve those goals than writing static documentation.

This article summarizes common "best practices" which agilists have adopted with respect to documentation.

Best practices for increasing the agility of documentation:

1. Writing
   • Prefer executable specifications over static documents
   • Document stable concepts, not speculative ideas
   • Generate system documentation
2. Simplification
   • Keep documentation just simple enough, but not too simple
   • Write the fewest documents with least overlap
   • Put the information in the most appropriate place
   • Display information publicly
3. Determining What to Document
   • Document with a purpose
   • Focus on the needs of the actual customers(s) of the document
   • The customer determines sufficiency
4. Determining When to Document
   • Iterate, iterate, iterate
   • Find better ways to communicate
   • Start with models you actually keep current
   • Update only when it hurts
5. General
   • Treat documentation like a requirement
   • Require people to justify documentation requests
   • Recognize that you need some documentation
   • Get someone with writing experience

Author: Scott W. Ambler