Wikimedia Apps/Team/Retrospectives/2015-10-23

ANDROID

edit

October 23, 2015

Previous Retrospective Actions

edit
  • Action! Wait a sprint to see if there is progress on HockeyApp blockers. Use default implementation if not. DONE H.A. GOT

Worked Well

edit
  • Manually handling Android configuration changes did, as expected but not elaborted, introduce complexity but was definitely worthwhile. I think the Google docs should be updated to say "Activities with simple views don't need this. Activities with map or WebView-like complexity do."+
  • One of our most insidious bugs was fixed (by a volunteer!) +++
  • Volunteer contributions (mostly). They're a time investment but definitely worthwhile so far.
  • java-mwapi submodule style was very useful when needed. Made debugging much simpler and less crazy than munging a jar binary repeatedly. The library will be deprecated but I'm going to try to write about this particular (and novel, I believe) aspect of it.

Worked Poorly

edit
  • Work flowing through the system+
    • Making big changes and upgrades (HockeyApp, intro'ing bugs)
    • Bugs are a hiccup in workflow
    • Patches stacked up with dependencies can make bottlenecks
    • Code reviews weren't getting daily check-ins
    • More focus on the service side took dev time away
    • DB: Writing less code than usual
  • Underestimating capacity
    • Often waiting for signoff on things
    • Self-QA helping
    • Estimation is accurate
  • MFE styles break our presentation+
  • Moving to Parsoid is more complicated than expected.

Confuses Us

edit
  • Not confused, but I have a question: do we want to do more unit testing? Yes +1+
  • I too have a question: Are we getting the most we can out of our ceremonies (and our Scrum Master)?
  • Status of testing devices on order+

Top three items, from "Worked Poorly" and "Confuses Us"

edit

Action Items

edit
  • Action! Let's remember to estimate things
    • Use standup for notifying of estimation needs, adhoc hatjitsu
  • Action! Column to backlog: Design Doing (no more questions for design that aren't in the sprint) [MAX]
  • Action! Need more sync up/communication w/Reading Web team ("MFE styles break our presentation") [EMAIL, MAX]
  • Action! Need update on ordered testing devices [ADAM]


October 23, 2015


Previous Retrospective Actions

edit
  • Action! Test drive Google Drive assets/spec management [TEAM] ONGOING
  • Action! Let's ship stuff, not focus too much on perfection/robustness BETTER, TRICKY
  • Action! IRC norms for Phab communication: Email thread [BRIAN] NOT DONE
  • Action! Get more regular updates w/design (standups?) [MAX EMAIL THREAD]
    • Or post-estimation kick-off?
  • Action! Set a timeline for when the QA tasks are acted on [BRIAN/JOSH] ONGOING


Worked Well

edit
  • PM signoff!
  • Pace of developement is picking up
  • iOS 5.0 Specs doc
  • GitHub community for diagnosing and working around DevOps issues (see below)
  • New designs looking sharp
  • iOS 9 features looking friggin' sweet
  • Specs discussions w/ Josh & Elena
    • Feeling good about focusing on specs, hope it will clear up lots of ambiguity and make the app better
  • App is looking good - working well
  • Feed!!!

Worked Poorly

edit
  • Meeting email thread: need teamwide planning and stand-ups
    • Tough right now, let's get the whole team more in the loop
    • Feels like we need a more cohesive, basic planning meeting
  • Too much re-litigating/arguing
    • Wasting a lot of time discussing things at execution-time
    • Working together - or not?d
  • Design assets migrating to google drive (IMO its fine, lets keep Prod specs on Google and mocks on Phab)
  • DevOps infrastructure (iTC changes, broke fastlane _and_ CocoaPods)
  • Not having a 3D-touch-able device (BG)

Confuses Us

edit
  • Swift best practices
    • Good thing I'm going to a Swift Summit next week!

Top three items, from "Worked Poorly" and "Confuses Us"

edit

Actions Items

edit
  • Action! Gut check on assets managment in pholio, Kaity to use pholio more
  • Action! IRC norms for Phab communication: Email thread [BRIAN] NOT DONE
  • Action! Get more regular updates w/design (standups?) [MAX EMAIL THREAD CONT'D]
    • Or post-estimation kick-off?
    • If no decision made after a few days of the email thread, let's just pick something
  • Action! Need more regular team-wide buy-in
    • Meetings?
  • Action! Research how other teams do specs (e.g. Reading Web team)
  • Action! We need a standard QA rigor, engineers to design a QA acceptance criteria for all testing