Every software company has an approach to writing documentation. It typically builds on the way the product development works. Some of them are really unique; some of them apply what the book says. But no framework and way of working are perfect. What problems does agile development bring to the docs? In this second part, I’ll focus on Technical Writers’ team-building and place in the company.

Where Were We?

I work at Kentico, a software (CMS) vendor, as a Customer Education Leader (a manager of documentation and training for customers). We’ve been writing documentation in agile development for many years. …

Every software company has an approach to writing documentation. It typically builds on the way the product development works. Some of them are really unique; some of them apply what the book says. But no framework and way of working are perfect. What problems does agile development bring to the docs? In this part, I’ll focus on Technical Writers’ workload and priorities.

How Did We Get Here?

Kentico, a software (CMS) vendor, started with the waterfall approach as many companies did. In the early 2010s, we switched to agile development. You can imagine Scrum teams of five to seven Devs and Testers, a Product Owner…

Cestování je v dnešní době poněkud nepříjemné — nikdy nevíte, jestli se let opravdu uskuteční, jestli nebudete muset absolvovat testy těsně před odletem atd. Bez cestovky vyrážíme do světa už nějaké ty roky a tentokrát, poměrně náhodou, došlo na Sardinii. Má smysl jet zrovna tam? Co navštívit a na co si dát pozor?

Jak se dostat na ostrov

Na Sardinii se dá levně letět RyanAirem nebo WizzAirem. Linky těchto dvou společností se ale mění tak často, že pokaždé to může být trošku jinak. Létá se převážně do dvou sardinských měst — Alghero na severu a Cagliari na jihu.

My jsme vytipovali letenky z Vídně do…

I became a Technical Writer in 2014 at a company called Kentico. This CMS vendor had already started with Scrum a couple of years before that, so I must admit that I came when the painful process was already done. The process for documentation tasks was pretty simple:

1. The Product Manager defines a user story.
2. Devs create and later program sub-tasks of the user story.
3. Either Devs or I create its documentation sub-tasks for me.
4. I process them.
5. Devs do a review.

A lot of terms, processes, and approaches in the world of the Internet are specified and given. However, when it comes to the activity of getting into or out of a product, the authorities are silent. When checking the dictionaries, most definitions say the same thing only with different words.

For example, the Cambridge Dictionary says that one of them is used “to connect to a computer system by putting in a particular set of letters or numbers” while we use the other “to enter your personal details into a website, etc. so that you can use it.” …