Community Tech/Retrospectives/2015-11-09

Action items from last time

 * For this week, aim for smaller tasks
 * Tried. At least one epic got broken down
 * Kevin: Agile workshop next week (Kanban/sprint planning)
 * DONE 2015-11-05, but the topic was "Estimation and Velocity"
 * Follow up on plagiabot offline (on mailing list?) (Frances)
 * haven't yet, still probably a good idea, but not high priority
 * Write up github workflow on wiki somewhere (Meta Development subpage) (Frances)
 * DONE
 * Talk to Quim about GSoc commitments - Niharika will initiate email
 * Done and resolved.
 * Kaldari: Post retro notes
 * Done
 * Danny to follow up on template/broken gadgets page/board
 * Not done
 * Follow up on DBA question (Kaldari will investigate)
 * Done - apparently Jaime Crespo is the (only) DBA now

What has gone well?

 * Niharika's visit: lots of good hallway conversations, pair programming, and more!
 * Yes, really great to have time with Niharika.
 * It was awesome.
 * Pairing on the Citation Bot API tickets worked incredibly well
 * Will plan to do more stuff similarly, remotely *
 * Lots of good work got done, many tickets closed.
 * Special:GadgetUsage, dismissed sitenotice, CitationBot tix, broken French gadgets.
 * Analysis / Sprint planning / Backlog makes more sense (to me, at least) and there's now a full backlog :)
 * New Phabricator workboard organization (thanks Danny!)
 * Getting info from Kunal and Timo about Gadgets 2.0
 * Agile meeting about estimation was very helpful +1
 * Ryan's sizing examples also helpful +2
 * Sprint planning meeting went amazingly, we finished up work for the sprint kickoff meeting
 * I (Ryan) got to actually do some development work (fixing dismissed notices, HotCat/VE bug, etc.)
 * Still so glad to have Danny as PM! :D+1

What could have gone better?

 * Plagiabot: never did get it set up, decided to put all the hacks in Copyvios Detector
 * Should have pulled the plug sooner (could be noticed eariler in a standup)
 * During estimation, should heavily weight whether there are installation instructions
 * Team doesn't have much experience with that kind of situation
 * Possibly have better contingency plans--cards with optional paths +1
 * In standups, could go through the board +1
 * (Possibly eng tasks/mini-milestones would help)
 * We (not just the team, the entire WMF) don't have a good system for getting translations. This is a problem. I had to ask a number of favours to get our prioritized languages done.++++
 * Ryan talked to Community Resources (Siko); paid resources available
 * Our sprint kick-off meeting was a bit chaotic, but everything got sorted eventually (next time make sure Danny is in all Sprint planning meetings)
 * Not a lot of development on my tickets due to travel mainly :( Hope to make up for it this week
 * Yeah, other distractions also, personally feel pulled in many directions +++
 * Gadgets 2.0 has pretty much no documentation +
 * Add docs as you go, when possible (should be a task, and estimated)

What else is on your mind?

 * How did our publicity blitz go (emails to mailing lists, etc.)?
 * Lots of activity (many participants)
 * No negative feedback
 * Ongoing work on estimation sizes as we go along

We (not just the team, the entire WMF) don't have a good system for getting translations

 * CE needs to take the lead
 * CT can keep pushing on this
 * Create detailed use cases; when/how often are they needed
 * Raise with Toby; schedule a meeting?
 * We have a nice system for software translations, but not for community interactions
 * Ryan spent a ton of time and effort getting translations
 * Suggestion: document time that was spent (by everyone--Ryan, Johan, Danny), compare it to time spent when using external service
 * Danny will talk with Siko
 * Ryan will send translation info to Danny

Yeah, other distractions also, personally feel pulled in many directions

 * Lots going on
 * Time box extraneous(sic?) tasks?
 * Possible mitigations: saying no, prioritization, clumping work to minimize context switching
 * Frances to talk to Quim this week, try out some time structuring

Action Items

 * Kaldari: Post retro notes
 * Danny to follow up on template/broken gadgets page/board
 * (wasn't done last time)
 * Kaldari: make sure Danny is in all Sprint planning meetings
 * Danny to add a task for gadgets 2.0 documentation
 * Kevin: Plan another workshop
 * Follow up on "plan to do more stuff similarly, remotely * " (N, F)
 * Frances follow up with Quim
 * Danny to talk to Siko about translation services
 * Kaldari to send Danny info about translation services