Today marks the 7 year anniversary of Sonic X Chaotic Battle. Completed in only 3 ½ months, Chaotic Battle was my first real endeavor into traditional animation. Studying other cartoons was the way I taught myself some basics of animation and CB gave me the opportunity to practice drawing preexisting characters and bring them to life.So, Sega has a little Sonic contest going on (Thanks, Luke). I will definitely be entering this in the next couple weeks. Reading the fine print boils down to a 1-5 minute video, no 3rd party graphics or copyrighted music, and it must be original work. There's a bit of reworking and tweaking I have to do to submit to this and that's what the next couple of weeks will be spent on. We'll see how that goes.Until my submission is finalized, I won't be spending much time on finishing Act 3. I just have to sit down and do it, but instead I decided to take a break and play Uncharted 2 the entire weekend.Wish me luck.

Happy 4th of July everyone! I had my fun for the weekend and now it's back to work. Some of you may have been upset at the fact that the contest has put things on a temporary hold, but that is not the case. I put in all of the special effects (glows, blurs, etc.) in all of Act 2 which took some time, but it had to be done. SFX was last week's agenda and this week is cutting it up and prepping for its YouTube sneak peek release. I don't want to specify a date at this point, but it will be coming out this week.Despite it being an edit, the shots in the preview will more than likely stay that way in the final version.I hope you guys are as excited as I am. It's gonna be sick.

Cosmic Chase will be making its debut on YouTube July 8th in glorious HD. You might be able to see it before you go to sleep for the night.It feels good to finally showcase some of my work which has been under wraps for so long. I'm looking forward to getting the whole thing pushed out so I can concentrate on finishing up school.Let's do it.

The reason I am writing this blog is because when I searched for information, ideas, tips, etc. about writing end user training for software that’s being developed using Agile, I found very little. (This article had some good things to think about: Just Write Click: Writing End-User Documentation in an Agile Development Environment by Anne Gentle)So I thought two things.If I write about my experiences, someone else out there might find it helpful.If someone out there who has experience in this area reads my blog, they might have advice for me.I work in the training department of a software company, and I create and update end user training for a certain application, which I will call TheApp. I make the following training materials for TheApp:a training manual used for classroom ILTquick reference cards with the steps for the most common taskseLearning for important topics that are requested only occasionallyThe Product team, which develops TheApp is about to start using an Agile development process. This is going to have a big impact on the way I work and what I deliver. For example,There won’t be any specification documents (Specs) for me to read to understand the purpose and functionality of new features.I don’t know yet how often new features will be released, so I don’t know if I can continue to deliver the same kinds of materials I have been, or if we need to rethink what we provide. And if we need to rethink everything, what do we think?!Soon we will have a meeting to start talking about how the Training department (me and the trainers) will work with the Product team (who creates TheApp) as well as the Business team (who speaks with our clients/users and recommends new features) and the Technical Writing team (who writes things like online help, release notes, and user guides).I have so many questions going into this meeting. Here are a few of them.Will ID tasks be part of an iteration? Or will we have our own iterations?How far behind a TheApp iteration can an ID iteration be?How many Agile teams will there be? Will we need more ID resources?Will IDs be included in daily stand-up meetings?Will IDs join an Agile team or be separate? What about the technical writer (TW)?How can the TW and ID work together? Will we share content?How will the review/approval process of training materials change?What ID deliverables are needed and realistic?The adventure begins!Follow me on Twitter. Click the icon on the sidebar.  Gayle__N (that's a double underscore)

We had our first meeting. There were eleven people. The product director for TheApp, two Business teamers, three TW teamers, a User Experience (UX) person, four Training teamers.This meeting was about figuring out what model we will need for training and user assistance. We were talking about all sorts of things from embedding training and support content in TheApp to defining additional audiences other than end users (administrators and third parties who may integrate with TheApp) to wondering if training can be customized for workflow to going global. We were thinking about what might be needed way down the road.I mostly listened. The higher-ups need to decide what we will deliver.After they decide what, then we can talk about how. I think I'll have more to say at those meetings.While we're waiting, I'd like the IDs and TWs to talk and share what we've been thinking about. They've been talking, we've been talking. I think we should talk together. I think we're going to be working closely. Planning to regroup next month.Happy New Year!

The Sonic X Cosmic Chase sneak peak is now live. Watch it here.You guys enjoy that while I get back to work on Act 3. Comment here or on the video itself, I read it all. We'll see how it fares in the Sonic's 19th Birthday contest. I'll be updating more on that as it unfolds.Hope you guys enjoy it.

The TW and I went to our first Scrum of Scrums meeting. This is a weekly meeting where the team leads talk about issues. It was a pretty technical meeting, and I think it might be my last Scrum of Scrums.The TW and I were invited to the daily scrum meetings, starting with the next sprint, which is sprint 6. These begin on Friday. There are four Agile teams and their 15-minute stand-up meetings run from 9:30-10:30am. We'll go, but we have a feeling that we'll feel the same way we do about the Scrum of Scrums.We've also been invited to all upcoming Demo, Retrospective and Planning (DRP) meetings. These occur shortly after each sprint. The teams show each other what they've done in the just-finished sprint. The trainers are also invited to this. We think we'll like this meeting.I also set up a kick-off meeting with the TW and the Product Owners (POs) for TheApp (there are three of them). Plus a few other people who asked to be invited. We are going to talk about how the POs will tell the TW and ID what is ready to document. Because here is the tricky part: The developers can successfully complete lots of sprints and lots of features, without actually finishing all the things needed for a user to complete a certain task. And we need to know when the task is ready to be documented. Looking at their roadmap and the user stories did not help us. We cannot tell which user stories = a task. We might ask for a weekly meeting with the POs.Today, someone from the User Experience team (UX) showed us wireframes for TheApp. This was great! We finally saw something.  TheApp's product director told us that in mid-March (about a month from now), we will be able to touch TheApp. There will be some things working. So, it's starting!

I'm thinking about how to split and share development work for online help and for training. We have a TW and an ID (me) and then another training person in the UK. So, I wonder if we can share writing procedures. It's a nice thought, but may not be realistic. Some issues are: The TW sometimes writes less-specific steps than the ID. The ID uses images of buttons and screens, which are not included on the TW's online help. And for the US vs UK, we call things by different names. So we'd have to edit each other's procedures.  (This was done in the past. The UK TW took the US TW's online help files and edited them for the UK.) Also, since the screens will have different labels for the US and UK, we cannot share recordings for eLearning. So although we will explore the idea of sharing the work, we may not be able to do it.  Bummer.

Scrumming The TW and I went to one set of Daily Scrums (four 15-minute meetings in a row), and I haven't gone back. They are very specific to the technical and programming work. We have continued to attend the Scrum of Scrums (SoS) which are twice a week. I do not get much info I can use at these meetings. But they do two things for me. (1) They help the Product teams and the Project Managers remember that I'm here and to keep "training" on their Radar. (2) I find out about schedule changes.List of TopicsAt the meeting last month with the three Product Owners (POs), I provided a list of topics from the training and help for the previous version of TheApp that is currently being used. I asked them to update the spreadsheet to indicate which topics will still be valid for the new version of TheApp, add any new topics, and provide names of people we can talk to if we have questions (i.e. subject matter experts (SMEs)). I put the spreadsheet in the document management system, Alfresco, and they updated it. That is a first step toward a task analysis. We will need to determine which topics will be covered in training (reference cards and demos) and which in online help.Training DeliverablesOur current idea for training deliverables is:Reference cards - Concise documents explaining how to perform tasksDemos - Captivate demos of certain tasksWe imagine that the topic headings on the reference card PDFs would link to the demos.Our goal for the release of TheApp is to have the reference cards complete, and a few demos. Development of demos would continue after the release.My UK counterpart will not participate in development of these deliverables, but we'll share them with him, and he can use what he likes.There are two other IDs in my office who will help with the Captivate work. But I might be the only ID working on the reference cards. And the reference cards may serve as a script for recording the demos.Getting in the SystemWe were going to have access to the system by now, but development is two weeks behind, so, so are we. The Hardening Sprint is being shortened by two weeks, so that Go Live can stay the same: May 31.Late next week the Product Owners will give a "Deep Demo" of TheApp through Sprint 6 to the TW and IDs. We can ask questions. And then we can get into the system and start our work. We will get Deep Demos of Sprints 7 and 8 when they're done.So, What's the Difference Between Agile and Waterfall?Agile has a lot of meetings. So, communication is pretty good. Agile documentation is sparse so there's not much prep work for me to do on my own. I have to wait to see the system.In both, I have to wait till the end of development, when they are testing the product, in order to start my work. So, actually, the work schedule seems the same.

I spent the last 6 hours working on Act 3, completing 5 shots bringing the total to 29/43. I'm gonna keep working on it a little bit more tonight, but the goal is to finish Act 3 by this time next week so I can announce a release date and start hardcore work on my newest project. And yes, there is a very good and obvious reason I've been referring to them as "acts".Hopefully many of you have had a chance to check out the Act 2 teaser. There is still plenty of action that wasn't showcased, so don't think you've seen it all!Release date announcement next week maybe?