Team Practices Group/Retrospectives/2017-03-02

ACTION! More conversation- NH to make a Tea Time topic

Next Facilitator: Natalia

What happened since last retro (2017-01-26):

 * TPG-internal
 * TPG annual planning kickoff
 * Working toward new phab workstream tracking process
 * New TPG calendar norms
 * New TPG team calendar
 * Conversations about adding one (or more) TPGers to the team
 * Great email thread about empathy and compassion
 * Product
 * Wes leaves
 * Toby becomes new interim boss
 * Grace worked on design of 2 New Readers affordability workshops and facilitated both of them
 * WMF
 * Collab Jam
 * (and some tricky calendar juggling as a result)
 * Structured Data grant retro
 * Inching forward with Tech Debt initiative
 * Cross cultural communication talks moving forward
 * Draft WMF values announced
 * Movement strategy is progressing
 * Annual Planning
 * Product conversations/consultations happening
 * Other
 * Joel on leave
 * Kevin visited Arthur in cloudy, rainy AZ

Keep

 * MB: Working with on-site TPG’ers when facilitating events in the office
 * MB: Doing facilitation crash courses
 * +1 sharing the sum of our knowledge! NH
 * MB: Good conversations within the team when discussing adding new TPG’ers  GG [1]
 * MB: Pairing in general, especially on offsites
 * MB: ...on truckin’ when things like Collab Jam get hairy or vent-worthy
 * MB: Flexibility of meetings (cancelling or repurposing) when holidays and other events conflict
 * AR: Cowolfing


 * KS: Having email threads like the one on empathy
 * KS: Experimenting with new things (and having retros on them)
 * KS: Publishing notes on wiki when possible (rather than keeping them locked in gdocs) KL [1]
 * NH: Heartwarming discussions (empathy thread)
 * NH: Posting to TPG public mailing list  GG NH KS AR [4]
 * NH: Phab innovation
 * NH: Calendaring innovation
 * KL: Wolves helping wolves (collab jam, etc.)
 * GG: Talking about Phab….as I mentioned in an email, resigning ourselves to using a crappy interface is making me feel disempowered MBNH [2]
 * GG: Pairing in interview-ish conversations
 * GG: Introducing more parts of the org to retrospecting- GG facilitated all or parts of retrospectives outside of a single product/tech team KL: org dev prezzos KL [1]

Stop

 * GG: Sharing more than (up to) 3 main priorities in standup

Start

 * MB: Figuring out a way to get feedback from TPG more quickly, on things such as TPG Engagement Tracking. Going way back, TPG has often taken a long time to get consensus on issues because of the way meetings are spread out, the delicate balance between #toomanymeetings and #consensusbuilding, etc, among other obstacles. MB KL GG ARKS [5]
 * MB: Tracking more tasks? Or doing more work? Backlog and This-Week are suspiciously light. Why? MBKS [2]
 * Core issue perhaps being that TPG is as busy as ever but I can’t see what people are working on.
 * KS: Find a way to track (or even share) appreciations in the moment, rather than weekly ARNH KS MB GG [5]


 * NH: Promoting TPG brand (more) KLMBARNH [4]
 * GG: Following purge guidelines for Tea Time topics. Surfacing dearth of topics might get us to breathe new life into Tea Time or question its value in its current form
 * GG: Considering where a survey might be a more effective tool for gathering feedback than a retro
 * GG: Review TPG mediawiki site for relevance of content  KS KLAR GG [4]

More conversation

 * KS: Find a way to track (or even share) appreciations in the moment, rather than weekly ARNH KS MB GG [5]
 * IRC appreciation channel?
 * Enough channels for now
 * Namely (but is very public)
 * How to do a remote version of a physical in-person kudos box?
 * Google keep?
 * Advantages of keep over gdoc/gsheet?
 * KS: I think I’ll set up a daily reminder but make it fire at a “random” different time each day (to make it harder to ignore)
 * MB: Figuring out a way to get feedback from TPG more quickly, on things such as TPG Engagement Tracking. Going way back, TPG has often taken a long time to get consensus on issues because of the way meetings are spread out, the delicate balance between #toomanymeetings and #consensusbuilding, etc, among other obstacles. MB KL GG ARKS [5]
 * Consider being bold; announcing “I’ll do X unless someone objects”
 * Consider reserving consensus for high-stakes decisions
 * When making a request, frame clearly what and when you are hoping to get
 * NH: Promoting TPG brand (more) KLMBARNH [4]
 * ACTION! More conversation- NH to make a Tea Time topic
 * GG:  Reviewing TPG mediawiki site for relevance of content   from our public wiki KS KLAR GG [4]


 * NH: Posting to TPG public mailing list  GG NH KS AR [4]