Agile Development

Addressing complaints about lack of documentation

One of the objections I hear from managers about Agile is the lack of documentation that comes along with it, especially the lack of documented code. In summary, their concern is that the code will become hard to maintain by developers (aside from the one who wrote the code) just because there is not enough documentation about it.

Yes, they are aware that tests should take place of the documentation but they also know in practice the code is not 100% covered by tests. Also, not too many stakeholders prefer to read tests just to understand what the product does.

These are some of techniques that I have applied to mitigate this issue:

- We usually formulate an outline, use cases, and keep them updated as additional functionality is developed.

- We keep a running system architecture document.  As iterations happen, we add to and update the document.

- We always document what we have done, not just what we are about to do.

- We provide just enough detail needed for the intended audience.

- We always create a test strategy that describes how the system is usually tested.

- We have test plan for each sprint.

- We always have installation/deployment documents in place.

To me it is very important to document what is needed, but it’s also important to avoid over-documentation; I hope this list will be helpful to other teams.