Community Tech/Retrospectives/2015-11-09

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Action items from last time[edit]

  • 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?[edit]

  • 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?[edit]

  • 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?[edit]

  • 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

Deeper discussions[edit]

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

  • 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[edit]

  • 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[edit]

  • 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