Community Tech/Retrospectives/2015-09-15

Action items from last time

 * Standups (chickens and pigs)
 * Johan listens, and then might share info at the end (seems to be working)
 * CL communication as part of workshops?
 * Maybe a topic for next week's workshop?
 * Backlog ran empty
 * Not a problem now. Big backlog.
 * Find way to have more communications outside of the standups (one-on-ones)
 * Scheduled weekly 1:1's
 * Timeboxing spikes: Worked well, or didn't?
 * Hard to timebox due to external dependencies
 * Process for dealing with unfinished work from previous sprint
 * Rolled over outstanding work into next sprint
 * Communications w/Editing (and other) teams
 * No action other than creating a goal for next Q to write up and share with teams
 * Would like clear process and expectations

What has gone well?

 * Meetings seem to fit in time slots OK with current practices
 * Bryan Davis was very helpful on untangling some of the bot code
 * Consulting with community on talk page about what to do on the bot was helpful
 * Phabricator's still working pretty well
 * Estimations/prioritizations went much more smoothly+1
 * Hatjitsu was useful
 * Development work has gone well.
 * Was able to work independently because of the nature of database-reports task
 * There were fruitful communications with MZ and Lego on IRC
 * Spliting the Phab boards seem to be OK so far (easier to see what's going on)
 * Meeting with Niharika seems to have been really useful for both of us in the last two weeks+1
 * Getting access to old tool code has been easier than I expected (although maybe there were exceptions?)

What could have gone better?
+* Didn't actually complete a lot of work (although some tasks were in review/clean-up) +* Work could have been faster if lesser time was spent on trying to fix legacy code and not just do it all over
 * Working with community legacy code: super frustrating and hard to keep momentum going
 * Specific engineering maneger/support when Ryan was gone would have been useful
 * Could use more review/feedback+
 * More interaction with the community would have been better for fixing the database reports
 * Satisfaction survey is behind schedule due to a couple issues and lack of time
 * The extension itself was all right but I could've used more support/structure during it
 * We need a PM. I think I need more of Ryan's time but there isn't that much of it.
 * Niharika and Frances both ran into poorly documented and therefore confusing code (though Martin's been good at answering questions for the bot)
 * Much time was wasted trying to fix legacy code without documentation.

What else is on your mind?

 * Need to gear up for wishlist survey
 * One week sprint extension, good? bad? discuss.
 * How do we do code review in GitHub?

Deeper discussions

 * Working with community legacy code: super frustrating and hard to keep momentum going
 * Dispiriting to spend a lot of time and not necessariy have a lot of results
 * Would be fun as an academic exercise, but not with task of making real changes
 * Lack of documentation. Original maintainers not helpful.
 * "Was faster to write it myself"
 * Lego has been helpful; maybe other people with broad knowledge could help
 * In some cases, consider rewriting from scratch--might be more efficient
 * End goal is to have working, maintainable code
 * Expectations: If not realistic, frustration is natural
 * After wishlist survey, might have more new code and less legacy
 * Ties into need for PM (or more availabilty of Ryan as mgmt) (Ryan is continuing to push on this issue)
 * Need to gear up for wishlist survey
 * Roadmap has survey going by end of month, which is really soon
 * Mostly Ryan
 * Needs guidance regarding translations; needs CL support (more than Johan)
 * Will need to translate actual proposals (talking with Siko)
 * Want to recruit volunteers to help moderate the survey process
 * Polishing draft process (will float this week)
 * Niharika has some related experience so maybe could help; Frances willing to help think things through
 * How do we do code review in GitHub?
 * Wants to leave feedback, but no clean UI to leave notes
 * Apparently github does have line-by-line commenting; Frances has the knowledge

Retro of retro

 * Train delays shortened the meeting!
 * Didn't get to talk about everything (maybe that's OK?)
 * Would've liked more time for discussing issues raised
 * 2 weeks?
 * Seems right (3 is too long)
 * Maybe make next one longer if not everything got talked about
 * Have team enter items in etherpad ahead of time?
 * Rarely seems to work
 * Reviewing action items at start?
 * Useful
 * Hopefully fewer of them in the future

Action Items (pulled out after the meeting ended)

 * Working with community legacy code: super frustrating and hard to keep momentum going
 * Specific engineering manager/support when Ryan was gone would have been useful
 * Could use more review/feedback
 * More interaction with the community would have been better for fixing the database reports