scrum and ready systems!

I think product backlog will have NO value here

If there is no value, why would anyone pay for someone to do this work?

Is the work complex enough that a system such as Scrum will be helpful? Is there any reason to empirically measure progress towards an objective, validate assumptions, and potentially change direction based on lessons learned?

Could these systems be considered products, or separate parts of one product? If so, will the product be developed further? In such a case, perhaps the product could be developed using Scrum, and the missing documentation could be handled like any other not-done work that is identified.

Thanks Simon

When I said “I think product backlog will have NO value here", I meant the value by add to it incrementally via sprints of scrum

The system is complex, but the goal of documentation is for maintenance when some developers need to read the SRS in order to know the services and the business of the system (i.e. the work flow)

The system is complex, but the goal of documentation is for maintenance when some developers need to read the SRS in order to know the services and the business of the system (i.e. the work flow)

Are you familiar with the concept of the "last responsible moment"?

Would it be possible to delay writing of the documentation until just before it is needed by the developers? Might it be something that the developers should complete whenever there is no documentation already and they need to research a system.

The advantage of this approach may be that it prevents the waste of writing documentation for systems that don't need to be researched yet, and may never need to be researched.

Although it does come with the risk of slowing down future research.

----

An alternative approach for future system development might be to have a definition of "Done" that requires sufficient documentation. That is, development should not be considered complete until such documentation exists.

When I said “I think product backlog will have NO value here", I meant the value by add to it incrementally via sprints of scrum

Are there any risks that might be brought under control through incremental delivery?

Hey RippleMan Al-subaiee!

I’d say whenever you're in doubt, you should just try it, experiment with it :) Since the code is already complete and documentation wasn’t part of your definition of done nor was it one of the original requirements, maybe you can see the new product/problem to solve for to be “the full documentation of the system”. I personally believe that Scrum can be used in all sorts of problems, not just software development problems, so i think it’s worth a try!

In this case, the users/customers of the product (documentation) are the developers who will be referencing the documentation for development/maintenance purposes. Your product backlog would be composed of all your documentation requirements (including information architecture requirements). And each sprint you would deliver parts of the documentation so that it can be readily used by your users/customers (the developers). So you can prioritise your backlog in order of importance where the most important parts of the system are documented first for instance. 

Thanks for all of you for interactions

Simon Mayer

Actually we intend to sell the system for some customers, and many of them required the documentations.

Also, we intend to make an international version of this system to be sold for many universities around the world, so we need documentation because some developers may leave the company, and the new ones can read the documentation to understand the system.

Ian Mitchell & Fatuma Kayembe

I think the benefit of incremental in SCRUM is to get the feedback of the customer, and in my case the system is ready and the customer agreed, but we want to sell for other customers.

Many thanks for your valuable replies and yours care