The ultimate in collaborative document development
Doc sprints
1Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
People
Time
Documents
2Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What is a doc sprint?
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 3
Setting the sceneA story about our developer documentation
Broken docs
• Too few
• Out of date
• Inconsistent
• Not hitting the spot
4Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Developers do know
Their audience
The subject matter
5Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
They don’t know
Where to start
How to write a
tutorial
Whether it’s cool
6Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
BookSprints.net7Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
BookSprints.net
http://www.booksprints.net
OLPC
http://wiki.laptop.org
FLOSS Manuals
http://flossmanuals.net
Atlassian
http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOCSPRINT8Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Early adopters
OpenStack
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/DocSprint
Mozilla
https://hacks.mozilla.org/?s=doc+sprint
WebPlatform.org
http://www.webplatform.org
9Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
More sprinters
The biggest sign of
victory is how many
pages
I managed to delete!
10Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 11
CommunityAnd why people take part
Why do people do it?Developing a new tutorial that hits the spot
Contact between customers and organisation
Learning from experts
Helping people
Fixing stuff
12Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
13Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Along with the
immense challenge it
presented personally,
this was also a chance
to work on a product
and a team I’ve never
worked on/with before
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 14
Agile or what?Walking and talking agile
15Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddoxhttp://agilemanifesto.org
Agile techniques
Timeboxing
Self-organising teams
Efficiency
Structure
16Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Sprints in agile methodologyShort period of development
Shippable product by the end
Planning-meeting at the start
Retrospective at the end
17Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 18
Planning a doc sprintIt’s all about the people
When to start
Initial, 2-3 months
ahead
Full-on, 2 weeks
ahead
19Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
20Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Who to invite
Everyone
Developers
Support engineers
Product marketing
Business analysts
CEOs
21Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Who to invite
Community developers
Community authors
Partners
Technical writers
Fans
22Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Who to invite
Make it cool
Use every channel
available
Target individuals
Give plenty of warning
Have some material ready
Remind people
23Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
How to invite people
A designer, limited-edition, Atlassian doc sprint T-shirt. No-one else in your
‘hood will have one like it!
Eternal recognition as author. Your name will appear as author of the tutorial
on the Atlassian documentation wiki.
Kudos from the Atlassian technical writers. We’ll write up our results on the
Atlassian blog and you’ll be inducted into the Doc Sprint Hall of Fame.
Learning while you write. We’ll have some Atlassian developers on tap to
help us over the sticky spots. Pair with a technical writer to get those words
buzzing.
Chocolate. Indubitably, there will be chocolate in there somewhere.
24Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
The coolth factor
What will you get out of it ?
A designer T-shirt No-one else in your ’hood will have one like it!
25Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What will you get out of it ?
Eternal recognition Your name will appear as author of the tutorial on the
Atlassian documentation wiki.
26Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What will you get out of it ?
Kudos from usThe Atlassian tech writers will write up our
results on the Atlassian blog and you’ll be
inducted into the Doc Sprint Hall of Fame.27Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What will you get out of it ?
Learning We’ll have some Atlassian developers on tap to
help us over the sticky spots. Pair with a
technical writer to get those words buzzing.28Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What will you get out of it ?
Chocolate Indubitably, there will be chocolate in there
somewhere.
29Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
What will you get out of it ?
30Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
we may not get
the book we
thought we
would going in,
but by the end
we will get the
book we need
Focus
Wish list
Templates
Style guide
Technical guidelines
31Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Getting the documents you need
32Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Wish list
Collaboration platform
Communication plan
Development environment
Chat, video conferencing, webinars, email
Room and facilities
Catering
Schedule and venue details33Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
More planning
34Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Involve people
early
Hot tip
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SprintingIt’s still all about the people
Global sprinting
Australia
West, central and east
USA
Russia
Israel
United Kingdom
Germany
Denmark
36Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Different locations
Round-the-clock time zones
English as second language
37Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
How to sprint around the world?
Different locations
Round-the-clock time zones
English as second language
38Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
How to sprint around the world?
Flexibility
Schedule
Mentorin
g
Technolog
y
Macro tekkie
Early sprinter
Bent rules
Ellis "Alpenmilch"
Pratt
39Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddoxhttp://www.cherryleaf.com
Remote in Russia
Love for user guides
Tech writer Katya
40Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Alone in Amsterdam
Add-on expert from
aevolu
Travelled from
Büdelsdorf
Andreas "Ritter Sport"
Spall
41Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddoxhttp://aevolu.com
42Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Sprint schedule
Every day Standup
TeachingDevelopmentFun
Last day
LunchPresentationsRetrospective
First
day
Kick-off
Time Activity
8:00 Tutorial development
9:00 Sprinter meeting and webinar (“standup”)
9:30 Tutorial development
12:00 Catered lunch
13:00 Get your stuff ready for the presentations!
15:00 Presentations and retrospective
17:00 Late webinar with Amsterdam
43Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Example schedule – last sprint day
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOCSPRINT/Schedule+-+Doc+Sprint+August+2012
All in one room or via VC / webinar
Two kick-offs if necessary
Round-the-table
Templates and guidelines
Schedule
Technical environment
44Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Kick-off meeting
Short
What you did yesterday
What you plan to do today
Roadblocks
Further discussions after standup
45Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Daily standup
Documentation techniques
Templates
Source repository
Best practices
46Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Teaching sessions
It’s all about getting the best out of sprinters, and giving them something in
return
Fun and coolth
Theme
Haiku
Weird and wonderful
Lunch and late pizza
47Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
"This is the doc sprint
presentations, right?“
"Yes, mate. We're
going to talk about
documentation for the
next two hours. It's
going to be awesome!"
48Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Presentations
49Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Retrospective
What went well
What could have
gone better
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 50
Retrospective results
Teamwork
Co-location
Pairing
Organisation
Duration
Doc maintenance
Templates
More teaching
More promotion
More pairing...
What went wellWhat could have
gone better
More pairing
51Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
The more
pairing we do,
the greater the
shared learning!
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AftermathIt ain’t over until the last doc sings
53Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Review and publication
Decide on tech writer and/or engineer review
Don’t be too picky
Remember the audience
Get it done during the sprint
Blog posts
Tweets
T-shirts
Chocolate
Hall of fame
54Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Thanks and blogs
If you don’t
blog about it,
it didn’t
happen
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ToolsEverybody loves them
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Collaborative writing
Multiple authors
Ease of use
Notifications
Commenting
Permissions
Confluence
Another wiki
CMS
Booki
Office?
Requirements Tools
HipChat
Tea Party
Google Talk
IRC / Jabber
57Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Chat
Google Groups (?)
Self-compiled mailing list
58Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Mailing list
Webinar versus VC
GoToWebinar
Simultaneously for:
• Kick-off meeting
• Daily standups
• Learning sessions
• Presentations
• Retrospective 59Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Webinar and video conferencing
Bitbucket
GitHub
60Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Code repository
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 61
Extending the metaphorKnowing when you’re onto a good thing
Innovation register
A whole day
Funny hats
Presentations
Implementation
62Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Innovation sprints
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 63
Doc blitz-tests
Developers
QA engineers
Product managers
Technical writers
And all
Test plan
Kick-off meeting
Collaboration tool
Chat room
Issue tracker
Who What
Team ownership
Team building
Doc verification
Late changes
Bugs in app
64Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Feedback from blitz-test
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 65
Doc blitzes
Plan
Collaboration tool
Screenshot tool
Enjoyment
Team spirit
Ownership
Awareness > ideas
Burnout avoided
Preparation Results
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 66
More stories and tipsFrom the experts
67Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Knock knock
Around noon on the second day of the First
Book Sprint we hear a knock on the door.
Here is the set up, we're working from a
hotel room in a complex called IMA Design
Village, on the 5th floor of a redeveloped
late 19th Century factory building with a
jerky elevator and nothing to indicate
where we are.
http://en.flossmanuals.net/collaborative-futures/ch046_knock-knock
1000 edits
400,000 bytes moved
40,000 new words
51 new contributors
57% non-local
4 future doc sprints
68Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddoxhttp://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webplatform/2013Feb/0120.html
Doc Sprint Dashboard from WPDS
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 69
Prizes
Food and drink
Cool swag
Just go
SFHTML5 meetup
http://www.sfhtml5.o
rg
/
Running a sprint Taking part
https://twitter.com/peterlubbers
Tips from Peter Lubbers
70Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Anti-troll measures deployed
“Oh, you are working on GNOME! I don’t
like GNOME 3, let me troll you.”
... then we got to talking... Face-to-face
interaction win.
Aside from the initial need to deploy anti-
troll measures, it was a successful event.
http://j1m.net/2012/12/28/chicagoans-and-gnome-part-3/
Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox 71
ReferencesThe infamous “for more information...”
Why do people write free documentation? by Andy Oram:
http://
onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/06/14/why-do-people-write
-free-documentation-results-of-a-survey.html
Experiencing the Atlassian Doc Sprint - Aug 2012, by
Swapnil Ogale: http://
icreatedocs.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/experiencing-atlassia
n-doc-sprint-aug.html
We Did It: Zero to Book in Five Days, by Anne Gentle:
https://www.openstack.org/blog/2013/03/we-did-it-zero-to-b
ook-in-five-days
/
72Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
References 1
Atlassian doc sprint wiki:
https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOCSPRINT/
How to plan a doc sprint:
http://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/how-to-plan-a-d
oc-sprint
/
A big hairy task list for planning a doc sprint: http
://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/a-big-hairy-task-list-f
or-planning-a-doc-sprint
/
HipChat: https://www.hipchat.com/
Tea Party: http://tea-party.appspot.com/
73Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
References 2
Google Talk: http://www.google.com/talk/
GoToWebinar: http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/webinar
Booki: http://flossmanuals.net/booki-user-guide/
Confluence: www.atlassian.com/software/confluence
Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/
GitHub: https://github.com/
74Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
References 3
Doc Sprint Mountain View, by Peter Lubbers:
http://blog.webplatform.org/2012/12/doc-sprint-mountain-vi
ew
/
Recap of Web Platform Doc Sprint Berlin, by Andre Jay
Meissner: http://
www.google.com/url?q=http%3A%2F%2Flists.w3.org%2FA
rchives%2FPublic%2Fpublic-webplatform%2F2013Feb%2F
0120.html&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNGDrM5Zap7v4gW
WyT1Xfu_Iu5c_dg
75Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
References 4
Innovation sprint:
http://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2010/07/03/technical-writer
s-hold-an-innovation-sprint
/
Documentation blitz-test:
http://ffeathers.wordpress.com/2010/12/04/a-blitz-test-of-th
e-documentation
/
Documentation blitz, by Edwin Dawson: http
://blogs.atlassian.com/2011/09/interviews_from_the_jira_scr
eenshot_doc_blitz
/
76Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
References 5
Twitter: @sarahmaddoxhttp://twitter.com/sarahmaddox
SlideShare:
http://www.slideshare.net/sarahmaddox/
LinkedIn:
http://au.linkedin.com/in/sarahmaddox
Blog: http://ffeathers.wordpress.com
Other blog:
http://travellingworm.wordpress.com/
77Doc sprints, by Sarah Maddox
Contacting me
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