Supporting agile software development through active documentation

Agile development processes are adaptive rather than predictive. Therefore, agile processes emphasize operational system code rather than its documentation. To overcome the absence of comprehensive documentation artifacts, agile methods require constant interaction between the system stakeholders. Ironically, however, some traditional documentation artifacts come to support this kind of interaction. In this study, we examine the relationship between software and documentation. We develop an approach that enables incorporating domain documentation to agile development, while keeping the processes adaptive. We also provide a system design that actively uses domain knowledge documentation. These ideas have been applied through the implementation and use of agile documentation support components. © 2010 Springer-Verlag London Limited.