Mobile web/Etherpad/Q2 Planning 2013-2014

Mobile web and apps 2013-2014 Q2 Planning (18 September 2013, 10am-2pm PDT)

Agenda
Goals/hopes/concerns [Arthur] Goal: Gain clarity around overall expectations and desires of department Product visioning, setting quarterly goals [Kenan] Goal: Unify department on quarterly goal(s) User stories [Arthur] Goal: Gain clarity and some consensus around high-level features Story prioritization [Kenan] Goal: Prepare high-level priorities of generated stories to focus further conversation Estimation/team discussion [Arthur/Tomasz] Goal: Get relative estimations of stories, identify dependencies, risks, etc. Group discussion of findings [Arthur] Goal: Identify at a high level how stories evolved; identify areas of alignment/overlap between apps/web Quick retrospective [Arthur] Goal: Identify how to improve quarterly (and annual) planning meetings in the future.

NB the agenda changed during day-of; we focussed on defining the quarterly goal for the department, did some user story generation, and wrapped up with the retrospective.

Success

 * Keep exceeding the goals we've set
 * Mobile editing - do it!
 * Keeping the mobile site lean
 * Higher quality edits
 * Set ourselves up to learn more from our failures
 * More external visibility into our successes and failures
 * stop using desktop as a reference for ourselves
 * MobileFrontend default view for tablets
 * Users see the features they want, and they work seamlessly
 * defining what QA means to us across engineering, product, and design
 * mobile apps supplement mobile web for power users
 * balancing experimental with 'mature' features
 * more editors on non-english wikis
 * 2x the number of mobile contributors
 * more desktop features available on mobile web
 * more mobile features on the desktop site
 * VE on tablets
 * pushing out new features quickly
 * more ops, and friendly ones
 * good team morale
 * we measurably improve the user experience for mobile users
 * hiring an additional dev
 * apps do have features that web cannot
 * transitioning product ownership of apps and web
 * less technical debt, more code in core
 * quick responses to bugs, low amount of open bugs that haven't been reopened
 * community members are talking about us

Failure

 * Chasing our contrib goals, we forget our readers
 * Not challenging the status quo
 * Selfie-pocalypse reloaded (part 3)
 * users see features that don't work
 * bad editor retention
 * WP Zero users get charged unexpectedly
 * mobile has custom implementations of sharing code with desktop features
 * power users hijack mobile.css and put all their pet features on mobile
 * we do a little bit of work on lots of things, but none of them get finished
 * mobile apps rarely used or confusing to users
 * getting other teams to develop for MobileFrontend [as opposed to developing mobile-friendly features in their own extensions, etc]
 * edits escalate but the quality of edits decline
 * community completely ignores all our app/web features
 * only current unmaintained wikipedia app in stores
 * we don't support sister projects as well as enwiki
 * we make a new app and it gets bad reviews
 * things rot in alpha
 * no clear definition for the app team
 * we do not kill WAP support
 * low-quality edits
 * inconsistent app/mobile experience
 * mobile web becomes sluggish and buggy as we add more features
 * we attract contributors but they don't become community members
 * bad visibility of our work in other teams
 * distraction by 'shiny things' rather than fundamental things

Goal
Converting mobile account creators into active contributors. (NB Concrete, measurable goal with metrics TBD)

Worked

 * Yuvi socialization (having everyone in-person)
 * Story generation
 * Team cross-polination
 * No laptops/screens/tech
 * Goal setting
 * Parking lot
 * Lunch
 * Having Zero team present
 * Colaborative goal setting
 * Timeboxing
 * No shoes
 * Lo-tech

Didn't work

 * The room was too small
 * Delayed attendance
 * Pens didn't work
 * Goal setting process to rushed, chaotic, circular conversation
 * Lack of clarity around success/failure activity
 * No shared preparation for the planning
 * Too focussed on mobile web, not enough focus on apps

What's still puzzling

 * What happens now with the lo-tech assets we generated?
 * Things will be entered into Mingle, wiki pages, etc
 * How can we engage others outside of the mobile department in future planning sessions?

Parking lot

 * Mobile-ification of Vector
 * Focussing on Wikivoyage
 * Counting non-main namespace edits for community health
 * Should we broaden our support for editing?
 * Why do some users use desktop on mobile?
 * Coordinating a mobile editor survey