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Richard, how the Agile adoption affects your work will depend on a million
things. One important issue is how it's implemented at your company,
because there seems to be a wide range of flavors.
Another is how you/the writer are brought into the process--some adoptions
make the writers and docs part of the sprint, some are a sprint behind,
etc. Then there are the issues revolving around how well the team members
work together, how well the projects are defined and managed, how well the
process is explained, how quickly the process is started, ad infinitum.
I was in a similar setting at my last post, and would suggest that you try
to relax as much as you can at the outset (6 months at least), because it
can be confusing and it takes a while for people to settle into, if they
ever do. Some people just don't seem to get the concept (not having been
the manager, I don't know what if anything can be done about that, but I
found that stressful).
To summarize, you might find that you have time to catch up and become more
organized, or you might find that you'll have twice as much work. In
general, I found that my work increased in terms of project tracking and
planning, assessing how changes would be implemented, and interaction with
developers and QA, all changes I really liked and thought were productive.
However, politics increased.
You might check out the Agile groups on LinkedIn--they have a huge number
of comments that can be helpful in understanding the issues you'll run
into, and maybe some helpful suggestions. There are probably other groups
around too.
Best of luck,
Kathleen
On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 2:14 PM, Lippincott, Richard <RLippincott -at- as-e -dot- com>wrote:
> I know this is an elementary question, but up until recently I've been
> glossing over Agile topics as they haven't applied to my work situation.
> Apparently we're moving to an Agile work environment, and we're doing it
> soon.
>
> (We switched to Agile as a configuration control system about six months
> ago, at that time the standard response to my repeated question "Are we
> using the methodology?" was "No, we're just using it for configuration
> control, that's all. I learned that we're adopting the process about a half
> hour ago when I went to a meeting on a program, and noticed up on a wall
> were all sorts of yellow sticky notes arranged as "Sprint 1," "Sprint 2,"
> and so forth. "Oh yeah, we're adopting the process" said the program
> manager in the meeting.)
>
> I'm a lone writer, currently working at about 110% of capacity, managing
> the operator and field service manuals on about a dozen different complex
> products, and it's not unusual that I've got three or four different
> projects/product manuals in work at any given moment.
>
> Is my life about to get easier because of this, or is it likely I'm about
> to get overwhelmed by the pace of changes?
>
> Thanks...
>
> Rick Lippincott, Technical Writer
> American Science and Engineering, Inc. | www.as-e.com
> 829 Middlesex Turnpike | Billerica, MA 01821 USA | Fax +1-978-262-8702
> Office +1-978-262-8807 | rlippincott -at- as-e -dot- com
>
>
>
>
>
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