Agile, SCRUM and Technical Writing

[Beth Agnew]

Yet another dev manager unclear on the concept. Good specifications, 
written before the product is developed, state exactly what is to be 
built and how. Yes, sometimes the specs have to be changed to work 
around a particular problem, and the spec doc should be updated with 
that new info, but if the specs are continually changing, you're asking 
the dev team to hit a moving target. I don't know anyone outside of a 
Wild West Show who is good at doing that. If they don't know what the 
spec of the final product is until the product is finished, that's the 
least of their problems.

I have worked with organizations that knew how to write, and develop to, 
specifications. It is eminently possible, and results in a good final 
product and no team burnout. The problem is that many development 
organizations really don't know how to manage development.

Ned Bedinger wrote:
> Another after-the-fact document is the specification that gets written 
> after product development is completed.  A dev manager once candidly 
> explained these to me:  How could they possibly know what the 
> specification of the final product is, unless the product is already 
> finished?