Wikimedia Discovery/Meetings/Maps retrospective 2016-04-21

Discovery Maps (and Graphs) ("Interactive Team") Retrospective

2016-04-21

Covering whatever has happened related to the team since the last retro (2016-03-22).

Review action items from before

 * Tomasz will schedule a long-term maps meeting
 * Tomasz met with Yuri. Output at high level is in FDC planning doc;
 * Chris will follow up with Yuri about a blog post regarding graphing pageviews (Victor Grigas wants to do a video)
 * Decided to hold off on this. It's more of an unofficial side project.
 * Yuri will check with Volker/Julien about maps; will report back (esp. to Tomasz)
 * Discussions have happened. Not top priority right now.
 * Yuri will write up 2 goal scenarios for Q4
 * We have Q4 goals, thanks to the whole team

What went well?

 * order placed for maps backend servers
 * agreement reached on varnish (but still waiting for Mark's signature)
 * we have a great team!
 * Onboarding for Julien went well and was easy

What could we improve?

 * Getting feedback from static map (or general maps-interested) people
 * I sent this message to about a dozen editors. Only one reply thus far.
 * User:CKoerner (WMF)/Conversation about interactive map use/Ask Message
 * rough draft of overview of interactive maps here: User:CKoerner (WMF)/Conversation about interactive map use


 * Julien should share his birds...[he's calling in from Costa Rica]
 * I'm hoping for a better vision
 * Hopefully with the work that Chris has been doing, we will get a much better vision for the future of the Maps
 * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps/Conversation_about_interactive_map_use
 * collaboration with other teams (yuri)
 * So far cross-team collaboration has been very sporadic, albeit sometimes very productive (VE).  Would be great to have a bit more predictability
 * High level view of how Maps work technically  (yes, I've read the page, but I miss a component diagram - and yes again I do like UML, I was an architect until recently)
 * I'll start a diagram and ask questions (side note, I'd love a PlantUML plugin for mediawiki...)
 * https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Maps
 * I felt we needed a designer lately
 * UX and visuals
 * Julien can take some of this (and already has started in some cases)
 * Question: How does this work with Ed?
 * Julien will bring to the weekly meeting with designers, but they are short-staffed now
 * At some point, we will need a designer (icons, etc.), but for now we can work with what we have
 * H/W request could improve by:
 * more clear communication
 * separate different requests for caching vs backend
 * better understanding of the content needed in a H/W request ("we can work with any server you give us" is actually confusing)
 * have an Ops representative in the team
 * Could use more of Chris's time; and Guillaume's for the hardware

What else should be noted?

 * Long-term high-level planning has happened, but we probably need more tactical meetings/planning
 * Maps caching servers waiting for Mark's approval
 * Guillaume has not yet really started working on Maps (well, other than following H/W requests...)
 * Two meetings per week to keep the team in sync
 * Yuri has been operating as the Product Owner, using a collaborative style
 * Full PO might have helped, but would have blocked us in many ways
 * I don't see the need for a PM at all; Chris can interact with the community.  +1 +1
 * We could be more organized in this area, but dedicated person is not necessary
 * Will try to do analytics support at some point; so far has been OK

Action Items

 * Tomasz will ensure long term plans are appropriately communicated
 * Tomasz will talk with Volker to check on getting help from editing team on maps
 * Yuri: Tactical planning
 * Guillaume: Poke Mark as needed until we get hardware
 * Guillaume to start reading and writing documentation and ask questions