Team Practices Group/Q2 2014 app health check

Comments from 2014-10-03 App health check survey. Survey spreadsheet here:

https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheets/d/1w68UX3VgZm_vKsYUNdB7AygumVoi84jGntc2DzHyE8Q/edit#gid=0

Releasing: iOS Crappy, Android Awesome

ad hoc on iOS due to Apple/unknowns, tools. Much of this is out of the team's control, testflight acquisition may move us to meh; Android is awesome! Scripts to help, could be better, gradle will make things better. Our deployment processes are completely different from eg the deployment train.

 

Process: iOS Awesome, Android Awesome

Resourcing (product and design) is one area that could be better; asynchronicity would be a welcome thing to try...have a lot of synchronous communication (though it is generally quite useful).

 

Code quality: iOS Meh, Android Awesome

iOS: meh with an upward trend, refactoring is underway, soon to be awesome!; Android code "Can not get better"-Dmitry, awesome minus some tests, and measurement of code coverage. Dan would appreciate more code comments.

 

Value: 'iOS Meh, Android Awesome'

Moiz: team should be proud that we ship two distinct apps. Moiz and Vibha are happy to be on this team, can actualy ship stuff, this happens on few other teams. We are proud. We need to keep this up. App coudl be so much better compared to best in class apps. Given our resources compared to best in class this is pretty amazing. Monte: iOS on trajectory to awesome, Brion: pretty cool! Remember that apps are MVP. App feedback shows that users are happy in general. Android: awesome; iOS meh trending up, Apple users more critical.

 

Speed: 'iOS Meh, Android Meh'

iOS: meh, based on the stuff we're refactoring now, which has slowed us down. Android: meh, stuff gets stuck in beta, Release early releasaseoftn, coudl use mroe fearlessness. Haven't done a prod android release in 2 months. Have made massive improvements in unblocking ourselves, eg design review meeting.

 

Mission: iOS Awesome, Android Awesome

iOS: it's a hard mission but unambiguous. Prioritization is hard (what accomplishes the mission the fastest?), Bernd: shift from contrib to reading was confusing/surprising. Dan feels like he had less experience at that point (though direction was set before he started). Team was able to shift and realize that we need to be delivering value.

 

Fun: iOS Awesome, Android Meh

iOS: fun!; Android: fun to be in office! Vibha: we should do more stuff as a team. Dan: important to get together more. Vibha: offsite every 3-4 months would be very useful, gives energy to the team/projects.

 

Learning: iOS Awesome, Android Awesome

Brion and Monte feel like they've learned a ton on the programming and platform end. Dmitry: not learning all the time, but still learned a ton. iOS recruiting uses Bernd and Dmitry as the gold standard :-) Cross-team learning happens; potential for more.

 

Support: iOS Crappy, Android Crappy

Within team support between eng/design is good; Dan concerned that he can't give enough support (or as much as we want). We shoulld be digesting data not writing reports. May be a matter of us being a new team. If we are responsible for the #1 priority at WMF we need to get the message out for resourcing and support. Analytics should be thinking more user-storyish. Note: analytics team individual members have been very helpful. Product and eng are being forced to do analytics work.

 

Destiny: 'iOS Awesome, Android Awesome'

Monte: everyone cares deeply, generates ideas, we determine our destiny. We can't get buy in. Dmitry/Bernd: like the level of involvement we have eg nearby. Brion: feel good! Dan: agree! get a lot of freedom from director. Feel empowered to set direction and influence but don't have to "tell people what to do.".

 

Open-source citizenry: 'iOS Meh, Android Meh'

New codebase so not sure how much these apply. Going forward would like to see more. Main directive is the wp app. Our main directive *hasn't* been making a generic platform that anyone can branch. Wikidata is important!!! Maybe open street maps. Few pull requests on iOS app; Android has some good quality patches pending, would like to encourage more during unstructured time, get pull requests import working.