As the Agile Manifesto stated that it prefers "working software over comprehensive documentation", some early Agile adopters jumped to the conclusion that documentation was useless. Thus Scrum software developers should only concentrate in creating working software with code that was the most easier to understand. The Agile Manifesto however also said that there is some value on the left side of the comparison and in her tow blog posts Birgitta Böckeler reminds us that Agile documentation fulfills some important goals. Birgitta Böckeler starts her blog post explaining that there is value in documentation, that there is no fixed rules about how much documentation is enough and finally that documents have different audiences from software developers to final users. Then she follows by listing four goals that documentation can have for Agile and Scrum teams. 1. Creating a shared understanding Some things might seem to be clear in the heads of the members of the Scrum teams but with a slightly different point of view, like the software architecture for instance. Creating a document helps team members to discuss formally the topic and achieve a common understanding. Birgitta Böckeler proposes to create a wall of shared understanding with the main things that Agile members team should agree upon. She provides some tips on how to select the items that should appear on this wall. 2. Expose complexity Even if Agile software developers should strive for simplicity, there are often some points that might require more explanation, like a data migration plan [...]
