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Modern Documentation for a Non-Waterfall LifeCycle
Today I received input from Michael regarding the place of documentation especially useful in a large project requiring multiple teams for completion. His response emphasizes the tension of an Agile project where the project is too big for a single team. In this scenario some form of up front design may be necessary to keep all team members functioning effectively.
I have personally seen this scenario in Agile data warehouse projects where there is a closer dependency of software between layers than in most other systems. For example, report requirements help define warehousing schema. Then ETL processes must be performed to populate the new schema. Once those two pieces are in place the final report creation can begin. Often these different layer tasks are performed by different teams and are scheduled (on purpose) in a staggered fashion in order to keep all participants fully engaged.
This is a great example of where documentation is essential for communication. For ETL a data flow diagram may be significant. A database diagram is also important for writing utilities to import data. The same database diagram may also be used by the report developer when writing queries for reports. Because of the usefulness of those diagrams, it makes sense to create and maintain them on an iterative basis as new features are added to your data warehouse.
Michael takes these concepts to an even larger scope…
Michael:
What a great topic and the current focus of much of my work as a software architect.
Through numerous engagements and real world experiences, I and my colleagues have recognized a number of reoccurring themes which the industry at large has been chewing on for some time; Agile, the emerging Architect role and Design.
Currently, there are two particular pain points that the industry seems to have great difficulty with in Agile environments; Team Composition and Large Initiatives. Both represent scenarios where the original intent of the manifesto and common Agile practice break down.
I have written a spirited article titled Agile and the Architect that summarizes my experiences and those of my colleagues and attempts to shed light on why so many organizations have trouble with Effective Agile.
I hope this increases your interest in documentation, and the benefit of maintaining it for any project, especially ongoing RAD projects.
Michael has other insights he will be sharing with us later. In the mean time, feel free to share your thoughts on this topic through Email to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben