An Agile Approach to Writing

The Challenge of Writing

Whether you are writing a blog, writing a report, or writing a thesis, it can sometimes be difficult to motivate yourself, to sit down and actually do the work. Writer’s block can interfere with progress (how do I say that?), distractions for other menial tasks take you elsewhere (oops, I forgot to put the laundry on); especially if you are working from home or some other remote location.

it can sometimes be difficult to motivate yourself to write

There are many strategies that writers use. One favorite is to chunk writing into small blocks and another is to write for a set time each day. Small steps will get you there! But how do you track progress for these small chunks? How do you know if you are achieving your goal?

Agile explained

The term Agile was first introduced in the manufacturing industry at Toyota to transform a slow and clumsy vehicle manufacturing process and try and reduce inventory and manufacturing costs (Kouri, Salminimaa & Vilpola 2007). There are many techniques, but the most popular is Kanban.

Kanban is a ‘card’ system that works by establishing a process for the use of inventory. Instead of having large amounts of inventory on hand, small quantities of inventory are set up in bins and refilled when the bin gets low. When the bin is low or empty it triggers a fulfillment process. Even bakeries are using the Kanban system to refill trays of bread or biscuits; thereby reducing overall stock levels rather than producing based on estimates of how much is needed for the day or week (Lupo, 2012). Kanban allows business to operate on a minimum inventory level as opposed to a safe (and often overstated) inventory level.

the ability to track work … provides instant feedback

The Kanban system has been widely accepted into the Systems Development field and has also infiltrated Project Management and Marketing (Rigby, Sutherland & Takeuchi 2016). The way it works is based on a ‘task list’ with several columns: ToDo, Doing, For Review, Done (see Figure 1). A card is raised to describe a specific task, and all tasks originate in the ToDo column. As a worker starts work on a specific task they move the card from the ToDo column, to the Doing column. This way everyone that has access to the project ‘board’ can see exactly what is in the backlog (ToDo), what is underway (Doing or In Progress), what is ready for testing (For Review or Testing) and what has been completed (Done). Some Kanbans add another column to list all the Ideas or user ‘Stories’ (see Figure 1). The ability to track work across the various stages in the process provides instant feedback for everyone on the overall progress of the project (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Typical Software Kanban | Altman, Pixabay

The Kanban has been widely accepted in Project Management with many tools now available: Trello, Monday, WeKan, and more. Whether you are tracking real estate sales, development of training programs, a marketing campaign, or constructing a house, the Kanban board can track all tasks.

A Writing Kanban

Writing, however, is not a task but a project; as most writers know. Writing is typically not undertaken in 1–4 hours, but over several days or even weeks/months/years. However, as a project, the work or writing can be broken down into a series of tasks; often called ‘sections’ (or chapters) in a document (Parker 2019). The document outline (headings) tends to represent the sections required to be written. A writer then considers each section as a task to be completed.

Applying Kanban to writing involves (see Figure 2):

1. Developing the outline (heading structure) for your document.
2. Creating discrete tasks (cards) for each part of the structure.
3. Writing each section independent of other sections.
4. Tracking the progress of each section across the writing process (kanban).

Figure 2: Chunking writing into sections | OnWriteTrack

While a writer may move between sections as they write, the idea of the Kanban card representing a discrete section is still possible. A writer might, therefore, have many sections in the Doing column at the same time (this is a non-traditional agile method). However, as each section draws to completion, the ‘section’ (or card) can be moved into the For Review column and then on to the Done column once a quality review or editing has been undertaken (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: The writing Kanban | OnWriteTrack

If you are writing collaboratively, the advantage of a writing Kanban is that all collaborators can understand the status of the entire project and track each other’s progress; providing feedback and motivation to get the report or document completed. Motivation helps to get writing done. If you are writing alone, the advantage is similar; regular feedback on progress is paramount to keeping oneself motivated; slow and steady wins the race! Instead of viewing a 5000 word report as a huge obstacle, 10–20 small sections means 500 or 250 words a day is achievable.

Establishing an Agile Writing Project

As mentioned, there are many Kanban tools available, however, these tools exist independent of writing software. Therefore, their ability to track progress is limited to the data input by each writer. Maintaining additional software adds to the burden of writing, rather than providing a simpler way to track writing progress. That is, multiple tools make writing work harder, not easier. Tracking writing progress is not as simple as marking something as Done.

OnWriteTrack is a cloud-based writing tool that has implemented various Kanban elements to assist with agile writing:

1. A writing project can be broken down into discrete sections. A list of sections can be viewed and re-ordered, if required. Each section (acting as a task card) can be assigned to a different writer, have a word count allocated as the target, and a due date nominated.
2. A Calendar can be viewed and lists each project or section so that everyone can visualise when their section is required.
3. The Progress meter tracks the actual word count against the target word count to automatically advise the percentage completion (see Figure 4). The progress meter can also be checked while writing. Targets are not set in concrete and can be modified once the writer understands how much work they need to do. For example, if you have written a similar article, then you have an idea of how many words are optimal. This is a unique element for a writing Kanban.
4. The section Status can be amended easily using the familiar drag-and-drop between columns (like a traditional Kanban). This provides instant feedback on the overall progress of the writing project to keep everyone motivated (see Figure 3).

Figure 4: Tracking progress | OnWriteTrack

Similar to other Kanban tools, OnWriteTrack has added a Chat function for each section to enable collaborators to ‘talk’ or record notes about their progress. Additional to the chat are inline comments (similar to other writing tools) to provide feedback to a collaborator, a reminder to yourself, or for a reviewer to leave notes.

Implementing Agile Writing

Implementing agile for writing projects requires writers to adapt to a new approach. When software developers moved from the waterfall system of software development to agile, the transition was not easy (Mel 2019).

Factors for agile writing success might include:

1. The larger the writing project (i.e., multiple sections), the more requirement there will be to track progress.
2. If a project has a tight deadline, then tracking progress will be beneficial.
3. Collaborating with other writers can improve motivation for everyone by understanding each other’s progress and the ability to write and track communications (i.e., comments, reminders, and chat notes).
4. If writing is required to be edited by someone other than the writer, then inviting editor/s online to the same environment will improve productivity and provide writers with instant access to feedback within the same section (and avoid version control issues).
5. If writing is required to be reviewed (or approved) by someone other than the writer, then inviting reviewer/s online to the same environment will be productive and efficient (as opposed to emailing documents and having multiple versions).

Other advantages for using OnWriteTrack include:

1. If the document is likely to involve many versions, then using a single cloud-based environment (with auto versioning) will reduce synchronization issues.
2. Having the entire project (i.e., all sections) access the same custom style guide will reduce or eliminate formatting issues, especially if there are many collaborators, thereby protecting a company brand and avoid formatting dramas and unproductive time wasting.
3. Access to shared resources (e.g., images, tables, equations, references) can improve efficiency for authoring content.
4. The ability to include citations and reference list for sources.
5. Important to note is that OnWriteTrack automates the numbering across sections, so there is no need to manually update headings and captions; it’s done automatically (and dynamically as you make changes)

About the Author

Dr Linda Glassop is the founder and CEO of OnWriteTrack. A long-time academic, author, and enterprise architect, Linda has significant experience of writing, publishing, and using agile methodologies.

References

Kouri, IA, Salminimaa, TJ & Vilpola, IH 2007, ‘The Principles and Planning Process of an Electronic Kanban System’, in 19th International Conference on Production Research, Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences, Chile.

Lupo, J. 2012, Discovering America’s Bakeries, Bakingbuyer1, Youtube, 19 September 2012, viewed 18 November 2020, <https://youtu.be/4VO0MExafGs>.

Mel 2019, Scrum your writing process!, Blog post, The Writing Cooperative, viewed 10 November 2020, <https://writingcooperative.com/scrum-your-writing-process-a809e59bc692>.

Parker, K 2019, Agile Technical Writing Basics, Blog post, Medium, viewed 10 November 2020, <https://medium.com/technical-writing-is-easy/agile-technical-writing-basics-68254758ffd9>.

Rigby, DK, Sutherland, J & Takeuchi, H 2016, ‘Embracing Agile’, in Harvard Business Review, 02 May 2016, pp. 40–48, viewed 10 November 2020, <https://hbr.org/2016/05/embracing-agile>.