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Team Practices Group/Retrospectives/2017-05-25

< Team Practices Group‎ | Retrospectives
The Team Practices Group (TPG) was dissolved in 2017.

Previous Action Items edit

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

  • 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 edit

  • 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 edit

  • 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 edit

(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?)

  1. [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.
  2. [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
  3. [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
  4. [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
  5. [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  
  6. [2] End of TPG -> beginning of TPG JA JA

Action Items edit

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!        
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