Readers/Web/Team/Retrospectives/Q3 Retrospective 2012-2013

Mobile web retrospective Q3, 2012/2013

What's worked well?

 * Experimentation in alpha/beta
 * Massive improvement in story preparation
 * Beta labs… so close!+
 * Team synchronization, awareness (norms, responsibilities, etc)
 * Increased reliance on data
 * Code reorganization/cleanup/improvements
 * Improved standup attendance
 * Improved remote conferencing
 * Massive team support when I was ill
 * Prioritized code review
 * Increased collaboration with E3 and analytics +
 * Improvements in synchronization with ops
 * Analytics dashboards! +
 * Unity and focus around big picture goals/targets
 * Javascript Views and templates
 * Better design / product / dev coordination
 * We broke things and annoyed people and got blamed for things +
 * Pivoting fast (dumping bad stories, trimming requirements) when necessary
 * Coming together to fight dragons (like CentralAuth)
 * Architecture Review
 * Jon being the liasion for ops

What hasn't?

 * We neglected the edit feature! ++++++
 * Editing made a 'must have' for Q4
 * If team's not happy with big picture goals (eg 1000 unique uploaders), we need to push back
 * Lack of monitoring/alerting (e.g. 500 errors on watch list yesterday) +++++
 * Already have some basic monitoring checking en wiki on HTTP
 * Icinga...?!?!
 * Need to expand these checks for other domains, incl https, and API
 * Max will own making sure this happens
 * Deployments still too stressful and require too many folks ++-++
 * Finish getting beta closer to production, incl https and whatever
 * Make more automated tests
 * Michelle!
 * Code review challenges - partly workflow related, partly slow review++++
 * HIRE
 * Sanity check velocity
 * Process change... like, before picking up new work, focussing on code review
 * Propose process policy change for the team
 * Arthur!
 * Lots of regressions (and… editing in stable?!) ++++
 * Code quality got worse, need some refactoring/cleanup
 * Brion being sucked into web login/proxy work
 * I've had almost no time for experimentation or LevelUp+
 * Juliusz is the only one who seems to review my code :( (JS in particular)
 * consistently don't finish stories +
 * we don't factor in code review in estimation
 * we forgot about april fools -
 * single deployment windows force last minute code review and disappointment when code doesn't get merge
 * i feel like we can do more as a team and haven't quite reached our potential
 * Core blocking us (CentralAuth for example)
 * Us introducing core changes, but not getting them merged quickly
 * We need to be more vigilant against sandboxing alpha / beta
 * Too many meetings across the course of the week. No free days
 * Structured mobile team meetings are OK, it's the other meetings with other teams, ad-hoc mtgs, etc
 * Analytics :-S
 * forgetting about some stuff in alpha/beta (e.g. dynamic content loading) and letting it grow tumbleweeds-+
 * More spying on users

Anything otherwise still puzzling?

 * How do i run the acceptance tests
 * Michelle to share documentation, and host a group session
 * How do we get better feedback from users about beta/alpha
 * Community liaison could be really good at this...
 * Maryana
 * Are we moving too fast? +
 * Who wants to learn to deploy?!
 * Jon, Michelle... Juliusz
 * Hangout during deployment for anyone interested
 * What are the exact reasons for "deployment windows" (why can't we deploy anytime)?
 * To prevent mid-air collisions
 * More opportunities for the entire team to be in one place?+++
 * Plan more specific events while in the office to improve, increase velocity, etc.
 * Do what ops/platform did - brownbags, cross-team collaboration

NB: Michelle Grover 10:38 AM Juliusz said his laptop turned off and smells like it's burning