Previous Action Items

None.
Full notes from last retro (2017-04-27)

What has happened since the last retro (2017-04-27)?

Parties:
- Google staff mixer
- Michelle’s going away mixer

Events:
- Hackathon
- Disco(very) offsite
- WikiCite
- Engagement Survey
- Start of Annual Review season

Meetings:
- 2017-04-28 Org Tune-Up announcement in a meeting (where Toby and Victoria shared decks)
- 2017-04-28 TPG-only meeting to process the Org Tune-Up announcement in a meeting
- 2017-05-17(?) All-hands brown-bag presentation of final Org Tune-Up proposal
  - And video encores
- 2017-05-19 TPG/Stillwell meeting to plan the path forward
- 2017-05-19 TPG/Stillwell post-meeting debrief
- TPG meeting with Spotify JA
- First Intercultural Initiative meeting with wider community outside of core team
- Grace presented Agile Explainer at Monthly Roundtable
- TensorFlow (Google Machine learning tool) Seminar
- KL and Arthur met with Anna S. and other T & Cs for three days to orient to new roles

Changes
- Grace’s post-Org Tune-Up role shifted to an as-yet-to-be determined title for her operational role in Audiences
- Kevin’s post-Org Tune-Up role shifted to Technology
- End of TPG -> beginning of TPG JA JA
- All TPGers getting new bosses
  - Arthur and Kristen’s new boss and roles
- Communications department leadership plan

Arrivals:
- KL & AR in SF week of 2017-05-01
- Natalia moved to the US
- Eileen started as General Counsel

Departures:
- Jeff Elder left
- Amy Elder left
- Michelle left

Facilitation:
- Grace & Guillaume paired on survey analysis for Movement Strategy team retrospective which Grace facilitated
- Joel and most of TPG facilitated Movement Strategy meetings
- Grace facilitated a couple of retros for Global Reach team
- Grace helped Anti-Harassment team to generate team norms
Light Engagements:
- Grace observed Community Tech team
- Kevin helped ArchComm finish their charter
- Grace met with Darian regarding project management of a collab between Security and RelEng and with Lena regarding her interest in project management.
- Natalia helped Reading Infrastructure consolidate their Phab boards

What went well

Arrival:
- KL: New Wolf in the USA
- NH: Working during the day is better than I thought
- GG: Knowing that it’s not midnight Tea Time for Natalia any longer
- KL: Had a good orientation to new role
- NH: Warm welcome from Reading
Good meetings
- KS: Grace and Kevin had a great meeting to compare notes on the concept of a “Departmental Agilist”, and to review the Technology Program Manager JDs.
  - Maybe not Department Agilist after all; actually different than D.A.: GG will be … (“chief of staff”<---with permanent quotation marks) whereas KS will be Program Manager
  - KL: Greater potential for Bumblebeeing
- KS: TPG meetings to discuss the Org Tune-Up were very helpful for mental health.
- GG: Good impromptu meeting conversations with KL
Good taking care of selves:
- GG: Joel taking a family day
- GG: Kevin extending his vacation
- JA: Vacation
- KL: went to Nantucket for weekend - islands are good
- GG took a day off and missed some Org Tune-Up meetings
- NH joined a gym where she can watch Netflix on a treadmill
Org Tune-Up
- NH: It’s comforting to be in the “transition” phase of the Org Tune-Up, constant clarifying was tiring. +1 from GG
- GG: Kevin keeping us posted on Org Tune-Up decisions as well as updates to the Talk page
- KL: Getting excited thinking about potential for TPGuild
Pack love:
- GG: Kevin taking the initiative to meet with me about our respective new roles
- GG: Joel taking initiative on Phlog/Phab
- GG: Max’s updates on important developments in office supply technologies
- GG: Joel trolling Max in the Tea Time topic spreadsheet and the GRAX response
- GG: Kevin helping me with his gDocs fu
- GG: Natalia for her work on the Intercultural Initiative
Engagements
- GG: Great to help the form Anti-Harassment team develop good teamyness habits from the get-go NH (1)
- JA: Editing Vertical re-org coaching is unblocked after 3-month delay.
- KS: Disco offsite went great. Max was awesome. It was much more fluid and spontaneous than the previous all-Discovery offsite, which was appropriate given the current situation.
- GG: Pairing with GuillaumeP on the Movement Strategy retro and pioneering the anonymous survey conversation-starter
- GG: Great to get to interact a bit with Community Tech and Global Reach
- NH helped Reading Infra and it was a pleasure
- GG told Fr-tech she’d be moving off of the team as a result of Org Tune-Up
TPG Projects and Other
- JA: Added some low-cost, high-value features to Phlogiston (last-quarter burnup, last-quarter status report)
- JA: Minor signs that Phacility will actually consider our Phab reporting requests
- KL: Good to get Collab Jam post out - helped to shine some objective light on the event
- KL: enjoyed TeaTime topic on “can people change?”

What could have gone better

Org Tune-Up
- KS: I wish I had been informed that the Technology role being offered to me was actually as a Program Manager, not as an Agile Coach. GG KL
- KS: I wish we would have known that the Org Tune-Up proposal we poured so much time and effort into was going to be almost entirely ignored/dismissed.
- JA: I wish I had been consulted on Org Tune-Up. By the time I was informed of a proposal to change my role, it seemed that the decision was complete and final. GG NH
- JA: Org Tune-Up didn’t cover what I consider the main legitimate issue for evaluating existence of TPG: cost/benefit of the team vs guild or nothing or other models. JA
- GG: I think that the for-profit model of a CoP example does not apply to us. Would prefer to use it only as a starting point to generate our own. NH
- GG: I want the Guild to be about learning and super-lightweight and self-organizing. I fear that others might want to make it more like Tea Time. NH
- GG: Counter-proposal for Org Tune-Up was not fun for me. I feel that there is this perception [in the counter-proposal] that project management is perceived as a bad thing.
- GG: It was awkward that Org Tune-Up worked out for me but not all wolves
- GG: It was hard for me to see my fellow packmates under so much stress
- GG: I think that we were living in a bubble of CSAT praise. While it’s valuable to know this, I that I would have preferred it to have been delivered as a blunt instrument rather than a trickle-in, progressively clarified information. GG JA KL KL
- GG: Was weird to fill out the engagement survey mid-Org Tune-Up
- KL: Org Tune-Up processing seems helpful for some, but is not for others GG KL NH
- JA: Process and Outcome of Org Tune-Up
- JA: Ending of Team Practices Group
Engagements
- GG: Sharing docs with Erica L was harder than it had to be
Theory
- GG: I think that the tension between getting stuff done and team health [as portrayed in the counter-proposal] is a forced false choice in which getting stuff done is somehow seen as unpalatable KL GG

Discussion

(Discussion: What can we learn/do better next time, what do we need to say to be heard/to get closure, what do we want to test for practical fixes/actions/followups?)

[4] GG: I think that we were living in a bubble of CSAT praise. While it’s valuable to know this, I would have preferred it to have been delivered as a blunt instrument rather than a trickle-in, progressively clarified information. GG JA KL KL
1. Seek not just praise but we can we do better?
2. JA: Are you saying that if we had solicited more complete/better feedback, we’d have been able to do something different months ago and have a different Org Tune-Up outcome?
  1. GG: maybe not different outcome, but [...]
    1. KL: ...more prepared
3. KL: GG I see in your item that the praise made a self-reinforcing praise bubble that perhaps was an opaque bubble that prevented the flow of good information.
4. NH: we didn’t ask the right questions, or we ignored the answers?
  1. GG: …
  2. KL: two-way street. Better answers, better attention to what we received; also, we could have received better information - clearer and more direct feedback from people who needed things from us.
5. JA: The process didn’t feel like a high-quality assessment of how well TPG was working; felt like an arbitrary office-politics snap judgment. Didn’t learn anything about whether TPG was a good idea.
6. KL: Doesn’t matter if TPG is working well but in a bubble.
7. KL: Seems like there was a perfect storm that may have made it feel arbitrary: TPG unmet needs were raised, structural changes emerged as a theme, a need for empowering senior leaders was recognized - maybe three are conflated in our minds and thus feel very targeted at TPG
8. JA: Is there a follow up action?
  1. GG: No. Lesson learned.
  2. KL: I’m going to use it … to be a better listener, continue working within the org; solicit more useful information and be better about sensing when someone is trying to communicate a need (even if unskillfully) and strive for clarity.
[3] KL: Org Tune-Up processing seems helpful for some, but is not for others GG KL NH
1. GG: unresolved issues about practical guild vs tea-time and support. Worried Guild will turn into venting.
2. KL: General topic for action would be, being supportive without resorting to negativity/blaming/assumptions
[2] GG: I think that the tension between getting stuff done and team health [as portrayed in the counter-proposal] is a forced false choice in which getting stuff done is somehow seen as unpalatable KL GG
[2] JA: I wish I had been consulted on Org Tune-Up. By the time I was informed of a proposal to change my role, it seemed that the decision was complete and final. GG NH
[2] KS: I wish I had been informed that the Technology role being offered to me was actually as a Program Manager, not as an Agile Coach. GG KL
[2] End of TPG -> beginning of TPG JA JA

Action Items

JA: Will give non-present wolves until next week to react to notes before beginning redaction.

Next month’s facilitator:

June 22.
AR and KL will be out.
KL: Cancel in favor of off-site?
- NH: Kevin won’t be at off-site.
- JA to ask in email that circulates notes.
  - Cancel the retro in favor of off-site.
  - Have the retro at 5/7 pack
  - Reschedule a bit earlier.
  - Other_______? profit!

Team Practices Group/Retrospectives/2017-05-25

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