Scrum of scrums/Retrospective-2013-11-12

Notes from the first Scrum of Srums retrospective. The original Etherpad can be found http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Scrum-of-Scrums-Retrospective

What's been working well?

• Faidon happy with the meeting
• 1x/week seems to work well (faidon) +1
• Arthur as Scrum master (faidon)
• dependency wall +1+
  • it's good, because it helps the meeting master follow the continuity
• good overview
• Honest and open dialogue that is still collegial
• Wall good
• great having overview of what all the teams are wrking on, doesn't feel like we'er working in a vacuum anymore (jon)
• Brevity +++
• Prevents unpleasant surprises
• Emphasizes big issues that might be hidden to others
• Ops has a lot going on and probably has the most interactions with other teams - greater visibility? Current status report feels about right

What hasn't?

• Sometimes not representatives of other teams which is a pain when you need to talk to them * make attendance mandatory from all teams?+++++ ++++++-+ <-- vote fraud

-> Which teams are missing? Multimedia, Fundraising, Growth intermittent

• Could do updates in writing to focus the meeting more on coordination(I'm ok with faceless peices of text ;)) (I wouldn't read them :/ ) ++++++

-> Could also help to shorten the meeting

• People not updating the wall until the meeting, so prior review ("homework") pointless +++

• Time. 10:25 AM PST a challenge. (weird that it's scheduled for 1025 but starts at 1030)
• Too often - maybe it should be every 2 weeks ++
  • Should we include design?
• Need to use Mingle / teams not using it not represented there (? your team doesn' have to be on Mingle to contribute to Scrum of Scrum wall) (would be nice to use bugzilla ;) +
• Hard for one person to everything about what's going on with their team (particularly on huge teams like ops) +

What still puzzles us?

• Still not sure what "Scrum" has to do with this :-) (+1)
  • http://guide.agilealliance.org/guide/scrumofscrums.html
    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#Meetings ?
• Are we supposed to update status in Mingle cards or in Etherpad?++
  • I think we should update etherpad, and let scrummaster deal with updating mingle :) +;)
• Do people read the notes? - I do, especially when I didn't attend
  • Yes

Action items discussion

Team attendance: Unclear exactly what's a "team", e.g. Search, QA/betalabs, Labs

• Talk to growth, multimedia, VE and tell them they've been missed?
• Make it easier for asynchronicity - split status updates/dependencies in notes

fill out status update and dependencies in etherpad before / at beginning of meeting <- which? mail out notes after meeting make it easy to search for dependencies (prefix with team name)

• Make appeals to missing teams (Arthur, everyone)
• Rule of engagement for SoS: if you want to participate and you have to miss, make sure your updates/blockers are mailed out (Arthur)

Is the Wall something we groom before the meeting, or something that's updated in the meeting? Wall as reminder. Meeting identifies interactions

Action items

• Make appeals to missing teams (Arthur, everyone)
• Rule of engagement for SoS: if you want to participate and you have to miss, make sure your updates/blockers are mailed out (Arthur)
• Rule of engagement for SoS: Come prepared - review the wall and have your updates/dependencies prepared beforehand. (Arthur)