Hi, I can speak to a portion of your questions. We also use unstructured Frame 12 on Windows 7 and ePublisher to generate Help systems for the products we develop and manufacture at this site (instruments and software). We have been using "agile" for about 6 years now but it was never really successful until we adopted the JIRA development tool (Atlassian) about a year ago. For products and accompanying documentation, there is always a minimum viable product that must be completed before you can think about releasing the product. But after that, everything is supposed to be modular...so, say the team wants to add a new experiment type or sampling application to a software product, the product owners write the requirements for it by adding a JIRA story with a detailed description (sometimes a power point is attached), the programmers plan it for the next agile sprint by adding effort points to the story and breaking it down into small (typically 1-4 hour) tasks, the documentation person a dds a related pointed story with tasks for the same or the following sprint (you can only document in the same sprint if the programmers finish it early (say in week 1 or 2 of a 3 week sprint). Then the sprint starts, the programmers do their work, the QA person tests the very day the programmers get it finished or have something to look at, the documentation person at least gets started during that sprint. At the end of the sprint, there is a demo for the key stakeholders. They give a thumbs up or a list of changes. Then stories are added for the next sprint to implement the changes and the documentation person gets their proof edits completed, QA finishes testing and the whole thing is considered done and a release COULD happen. In reality, we plan releases with a bunch of new features implemented rather than one or two. However, as the release date nears, there is a lot of back and forth about what must get in and what can wait for the next release. That's the idea of agile. Ever y story in JIRA is carefully prioritized, so the most important stuff gets done first and gets a lot of focus...as it should be. We have sprint meetings for 15-30 min max twice a week that include the product owners, all the programmers, and the documentation person so everyone hears about the progress and any problems or delays as the sprint proceeds. We also squeeze in some usability testing...but that is a subject for another e-mail chain.
For your other question, we use a lot of shared text and minimal conditional text. This is because our instruments are not that similar to each other. Maybe someone else can talk about the other tool you mentioned, or other tools for creating documentation modules that can be reused. Deb McGill Sr. Technical Writer in Madison, Wi -----Original Message----- From: Framers [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of [email protected] Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2016 1:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Framers Digest, Vol 7, Issue 22 Send Framers mailing list submissions to [email protected] To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers_lists.frameusers.com or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [email protected] You can reach the person managing the list at [email protected] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Framers digest..." Today's Topics: 1. "Modularity" and FrameMaker ([email protected]) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2016 15:52:44 -0800 From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [Framers] "Modularity" and FrameMaker Message-ID: <of3273420e.ef747bf2-on88257f40.008053f3-88257f40.00834...@selinc.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi! I'm looking for some guidance for a challenge I was given. My workplace is wanting to make products using Agile development and by making things more "modular". I don't know that management knows what this means exactly, but I have been tasked to see how our product literature can and should fit in with this idea. The basic idea as I understand it is that we would have bits of information about a product that could be shared in multiple manuals and possibly other documents (such as requirement specifications). One engineer involved mentioned that in order to manage all of the software development, the company plans to use Polarion (and he asked me about Frame and API possibilities--I found the Frame Developer Center page and passed that along to him). I also know that Atlassian tools are also being used (I believe in regards to the Agile development initiative), but I do not understand how those two sets of tools are related. Has anyone had any experience with similar concepts or with the specific tools as they relate to using FrameMaker? How does structure documentation fit in with this, if at all? Any pointers to things I can read or consultants to consult or training I can attend? Anything at all would be helpful. I feel like I'm on my tip-toes and the water is up to my neck already. I know, I know, breathe.... Thanks! Fyi: We're currently using unstructured Frame 12 in Windows 7. We output PDF for print and the web as our deliverable. Eric Isaacson Product Literature Manager -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers_lists.frameusers.com/attachments/20160120/ec351a0c/attachment-0001.html> ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ This daily digest is from the Framers mailing list Send messages to [email protected] Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.frameusers.com Archives located at %http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers_lists.frameusers.com ------------------------------ End of Framers Digest, Vol 7, Issue 22 ************************************** _______________________________________________ This message is from the Framers mailing list Send messages to [email protected] Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.frameusers.com Archives located at %http://www.mail-archive.com/framers%40lists.frameusers.com/ Subscribe and unsubscribe at http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers_lists.frameusers.com
