Effective Documentation On All Levels Of It/Sw Development

How to write documentation for end users and co-workers

What you'll learn

Understand the need for good application documentation

Create the right type of documentation for every stage in the development process

Link the created documentation to the correct processes

Manage the lifecycle of documentation in all steps of the development process

Requirements

A basic knowledge on how software is created.

A basic understanding of documenting software development.

Description

This course is about writing, creating, and more important, structuring documentation on all levels of IT software developement. We need more than just end user documentation. Every part of software development needs its own documentation. Requirements, solutions, interfaces, need to be documented. Some of this documentation is transient or short lived, while other needs to be kept for a longer period, and maybe needs to be maintained itself over the course of their lifetime.In this course we'll explain the rationale for each of these documents, how they are related to eachother and their lifecycle. Also we'll present proposals for templates for each of these documents and how they can be structured either in a document store or in an online CMS. This course will give you insights in best practices for documentation. With some examples and a guideline on how to structure and maintain your documentation.We'll start with the rationale, explain all different types of documentation, and explain for each type how to approach and what to expect from it.Next using templates and exampes we'll show how each piece of documentation can be created.We'll show an example of a documentation structure that can be adapted to your needs. And lastly we'll give some advice on how to maintain your documentation and doc structure.

Overview

Section 1: Introduction

Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 2 The need for documentation

Lecture 3 Documentation in an agile context

Lecture 4 Documentation in a waterfall context

Section 2: Different types of documentation

Lecture 5 What are the different types of documentation in a sw lifecycle?

Lecture 6 Business documentation: requirements and capabilities.

Lecture 7 Project documentation

Lecture 8 Architecture Documentation

Lecture 9 Functional Documentation types

Lecture 10 Technical Documentation types

Lecture 11 User Documentation

Section 3: Business documentation

Lecture 12 What is business documentation?

Lecture 13 (Business) Requirement documentation / BRD

Lecture 14 Business process flows

Lecture 15 Business rules

Lecture 16 Capabilities

Lecture 17 Requirement

Lecture 18 Template for a requirement

Section 4: Project documentation

Lecture 19 What is project documentation

Lecture 20 The business case

Lecture 21 Project planning

Lecture 22 Dependency

Lecture 23 Milestones

Section 5: Functional documentation

Lecture 24 What is functional documentation?

Lecture 25 The usecase

Lecture 26 The User Story

Lecture 27 Functional Solution description

Lecture 28 Functional decomposition starting from usecase diagram

Lecture 29 Non functionals

Lecture 30 Visual representation

Lecture 31 Templates

Section 6: Technical documentation

Lecture 32 What is technical documentation

Lecture 33 Technical solution description

Lecture 34 API description

Lecture 35 Template for a technical solution

Lecture 36 Inline Documentation

Section 7: User Documentation

Lecture 37 What is user documentation

Lecture 38 Types of user documentation

Lecture 39 Know your audience

Lecture 40 End user Documentation

Lecture 41 Admin documentation

Lecture 42 Customer Documentation

Section 8: Structuring and lifecycle management

Lecture 43 Document Structure and Lifecycle

Lecture 44 Document structure

Lecture 45 Paper and file storage

Lecture 46 CMS systems

Lecture 47 Structure of documentation

Lecture 48 Versioning

Lecture 49 Create, update and delete

Section 9: High quality documentation

Lecture 50 How to produce high quality documentation

Lecture 51 Be complete

Lecture 52 Know your audience, aim lower.

Lecture 53 Context, context, context !

Lecture 54 Epibrate !

Lecture 55 Be concise - as small as possible

Lecture 56 Be clear

Lecture 57 A picture tells a thousand words

Lecture 58 Use a uniform structure

Lecture 59 Use a uniform template and style

Section 10: Recap and conclusion

Lecture 60 Short Recap and conclusion

IT/sw analysts,IT/sw developers,IT/sw testers,IT business analysts,Product owners,Project managers