Style Guide

Style guide

Adapted from ThoughtWorks (http://style.thoughtworks.com/tone-of-voice/)

1. Use active and colourful verbs to breathe life and momentum into your writing and inspire your reader to take action. Avoid passive verbs and "-ing" verbs wherever you can.
   • Compare "Understand how it was developed by watching this video." vs "Watch how it was developed."
   • Compare "Learn about participating or presenting at the next event." vs "Participate or present at the next event."
   • Compare "We use an integrated user experience design and delivery approach." vs "We integrate user experience design and delivery."
2. Be conversational. Write as you would speak. Speak like a person.
   • Be direct and to the point. Use contractions, short words, and active voice. Reduce syllables. Reduce Latin. Reduce jargon.
   • "This is a better way of working together." vs "This framework ameliorates many common concerns in coworking."
3. Be enthusiastic. Show excitement and interest in your subject or cause.
4. Be thought-provoking. Be disruptive and challenging.
   • Don't be confrontational or accusatory, ie "We denounce all those who stand in the way of progress."
   • Do challenge the reader to think further about the subject. "We recognize and support those who speak truth to power, expose wrongdoing, and agitate for progress."
5. Be edgy. Be new and unusual. Perhaps make people uncomfortable.

A few rules

Matters of preference, but this is how we will be consistent

1. Agile vs. agile. We do not capitalize the ‘A’ when referring to agile the practice. The only exception is for a title such as the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development”. It's definitely not "AGILE" or "Agile Scrum."
2. It's Scrum. Not scrum, or SCRUM.
3. It's Kanban, with a capital K.
4. It's Scrum Master, with a space.
5. It's a daily standup; not a daily Scrum.
6. It's story point estimation, not "pointing."