Agile documentation best practices

Agile documentation balances the need for information sharing with the reality of limited time and rapidly changing requirements. Several best practices help teams create documentation that provides value without becoming a burden:

• Prioritize documentation based on risk and usage. Documents used frequently or addressing high-risk areas deserve more attention than those rarely referenced.
• Keep documentation lean by focusing on essential information and eliminating unnecessary details. Aim for the minimum viable documentation needed to achieve your goals.
• Write for your audience, using language and formats appropriate for the readers. Technical documentation for developers looks different than user guides for customers.
• Make documentation discoverable by organizing it logically and making it searchable. The most valuable document is useless if no one can find it.
• Treat documentation as a living artifact that evolves with the product. Outdated documentation is often worse than no documentation because it misleads readers.
• Gather feedback from documentation users and iterate based on their needs. Just like product development, documentation benefits from user feedback and continuous improvement.