Google DocCamp 2012: Book sprints
Posted Dec 17, 2012 1:17 UTC (Mon) by
denials (subscriber, #3413)
Parent article:
Google DocCamp 2012: Book sprints
Nathan:
Great reports (both this week and last week). As a participant on the Evergreen library system doc sprint team, I would like to underscore a few points:
-
The members of each team seemed to gel amazingly well. Normally, you might expect 4 12-hour days together, working on something as personal as the written word, to result in a _lot_ of friction. But, perhaps as testimony to Adam and Gunner's facilitation of the event, it seemed that our team members checked our egos at the door and just focused on writing. Or... maybe it was the crazy looming deadline that left no time for pettiness :) Seeing the incredible results you can produce once you set aside all other distractions is quite motivating and rewarding.
-
The camaraderie between teams was quite remarkable too. Hard to believe that we had the energy after those long days to invest in hours of hanging out and having laughs! Good times.
-
Maintaining momentum will indeed be a challenge. After a further week of polishing and preparation, our project is about to unveil the fruit of its doc sprint labours on Lulu.com (with proceeds feeding back into the project) and invite the broader Evergreen community to improve and extend our work. There has definitely been a lot of excitement in our community that we've produced a real, goal-oriented book, and we hope to be able to build on that.
By the way... I've read a good chunk of the Fontforge book and all of the Etoys books, and they're both quite approachable and valuable contributions to their respective projects. I have to commend Adam and Gunner for pointing us in the right direction of goal-oriented documentation, the writers for following through, and the Google Open Source Programs Office for recognizing the value of good documentation and stepping up to help fill the gap that exists in many open source projects.
A doc sprint is definitely an ordeal that I would put myself through again!
(
Log in to post comments)
