Technical Writing in an Agile Environment: Panel Discussion

Our panelists will discuss the advantages and disadvantages to creating content in an Agile environment, and how to adapt to the practices and process of your organization. Perhaps you can gently nudge your organization to change their practices to make the documentation process better for you and the team. Or you might find you can use your skills in new ways in an Agile world. We’ll assume you understand the basic concepts of Agile practices. Feel free to post questions here that we can answer during the discussion.

Fei Min Lorente
Fei Min Lorente has worked in the technical communication field long enough to have used Word Perfect, and worked in an Agile environment for the last 5 years. She was at ON Semiconductor when Agile practices were introduced, and has been helping the development teams and other stakeholders take advantage of the Agile way of thinking ever since. She is now a Business Process Analyst in addition to her documentation duties, so she has the enviable position of seeing Agile as both an observer and a practitioner. She also has Scrum Master duties, and is responsible for indoctrinating co-op students and new staff in the mysteries of Agile.

Laurene Dong
Laurene Dong has a degree in Rhetoric & Professional Writing and ten years technical communication experience in Agile environments (XP & Scrum). Laurene has been the Senior Technical Writer at Coreworx Inc. for six years, most of that time as a lone writer. Recently she took on Scrum Master responsibilities: protecting, nagging, and baking for her project team. Now she writes the documentation in her spare time.

Sue Johnston
As manager of corporate policies and procedures in the 1990s, Sue Johnston was on a team introducing PC technology to branch employees at BMO. Her focus was to help create a system requiring minimal documentation and training. The development team was using a new work style, Extreme Programming, one of the roots of Agile. Today, as an agile coach and trainer, Sue helps teams and individuals build comfort and confidence as they take on new roles. Before corporate life, she was a journalist. Her formal education is in psychology and organizational communication. Learn at www.itsunderstood.com.

Ashley Pergolas
As a UX Content Strategist at Igloo Software, Ashley Pergolas works with the UX Design and Engineering teams to create engaging content. Her mission is to translate tech speak into simplified messaging for users and to improve internal communications through the development and execution of a content strategy. Ashley's experience has also included management of large-scale content overhauls, writing and editing technical documents (from RFx responses to budget/business plans), and her previous work in public relations and journalism has reached international audiences.