Minimal Viable Documentation (MVD)

Minimal Viable Documentation (MVD) refers to the practice of creating only the necessary documentation that delivers value to the team and stakeholders in an Agile environment. The goal is to strike a balance between no documentation and excessive documentation by producing artifacts that are essential for the project's success. MVD aligns with the Agile principle of simplicity and focuses on maximizing the amount of work not done. In Agile Modeling, MVD ensures that documentation efforts are purposeful and efficient. This means avoiding the creation of extensive documents that may become outdated quickly or are seldom used. Instead, teams focus on generating concise, relevant documentation that supports development, facilitates knowledge transfer, and meets regulatory or contractual obligations. Examples of MVD might include user stories with acceptance criteria, architecture overviews, or high-level design diagrams. The documentation is kept lean and updated regularly to reflect the current state of the project. This approach reduces waste and prevents the maintenance burden associated with keeping extensive documentation up to date. Minimal Viable Documentation supports collaboration by providing just enough information to guide development and support communication among team members and stakeholders. It helps in onboarding new team members by giving them the essential information needed to understand the project without overwhelming them with unnecessary details. By adopting MVD, Agile teams can remain focused on delivering working software while still providing the necessary documentation to support the project. It embodies the Agile values of working software over comprehensive documentation and responding to change over following a plan. MVD helps teams to be more efficient, adaptable, and aligned with the core principles of Agile methodologies.