Documentation

An important part of every project. Often underestimated and neglected when it has to be created but praised and cried for when it is to be utilized.

Documentation generation and use starts even before the project start, during the preparation or initiation phase.

I find the best approach for software documentation to be User Stories, written in an issue tracker, and linked together in a Table of Contents in a wiki. This structure allows for deprecating certain features, hence removing them from the Table of Contents or replacing by new ones, or even adding together several related User Stories describing certain functionality.

This makes for a good base for user documentation and training materials, as well as for testing documentation.

Initial material for this kind of documentation can be sketched with mind-mapping software (like FreeMind, for example).

• Essay on Agile Documentation (link)