Wikimedia Apps/imported/Retrospective-February 5 2015

Previous Retrospective Actions

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  • Action! Talk to Toby about Analytics woes [Dan]
    • Dan talked to Toby
    • going forward, analytics team shoudl be able to give our requests an indication of timeline (can do it at x time, can't do it until later...)
    • analytics team will be structuring work/process more like our teams; cards, user-focus; this is in early stages
  • Action! document how code signing should work and possibly turn team agent in to role account (initial docs by mid-Jan) [Brion]
    • Brian and Corey runnignthrough steps will be a good test of this documentation!

Worked Well

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  • Android production release!!!111zomg+1 Finally, yeah!+1+1+1
  • New, smart iOS developers +1+1
  • Quick action during unstructured time on some low-hanging fruit refactors to make some bits more sane for new guys :) +1 for quick wins+1
  • Getting to spend a lot of time with the new engineers just after they joined
  • Onboarding was pretty smooth
  • having all-staff & dev-summit right after joining was very helpful. need to distill what was most helpful and re-incorporate into on-boarding
    • Action! start wiki page for post-all hands awesomeness continuation [Brian]
  • Apps Q3 planning +1
  • MOTHERFUCKIN SERVICES (BAM!) ✌ +1(BG, esp. SOA & x-fn'l teams)

Worked Poorly

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  • Harder to get normal rhythym with all hands + summit+1+1++1
    • would be good to keep start timing in mind going forward
    • feature, not a bug ;-)
  • Android hiring :((Jealousy ;P)+
    • dearth of candidates
  • Collaborating via gerrit+1++
    • gerritt ain't no github!
    • potential upcoming Phab repo viewer/review tools furthr add to confusion
  • Analytics and crash report gathering (ability to get good feeback on our work)
    • had a meeting with analytics re: event logging (<- I think?)
  • Lack of documentation for the codebase and product+1++++
    • required lots of one on oneish handholding
    • existing wiki pages could use TLC
    • community liaison is joining, may be able to shoudler some of the documentation burden
  • Lots of meetings during all hands/dev summit, didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted with everyone
  • bringing on two new engineers at the same time and an internal transfer has left things really in flux +
  • My ability to mute dog barks ^(*o*)^ :-(--- (I like them)

Confuses Us

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  • Refactor code process(BG+)++
  • Not really confused… but haven't done a "real' sprint yet - so will probabaly be doing a lot of listening this retrospective
  • The process (still need to watch and learn though)+1
  • The future when we have four engineers on each platform(BG+)++++
    • What are we going to do?
    • What are the options/proposals? currently: platform split, product split, embedding with other eng teams across the org
    • BG has worked with option 2, worked well, has some insight from spotify
    • Action! Calendar a meeting to discuss this [DAN]
    • ^ Suggestion: can we move this into a doc that we can comment on offline? (perhaps in parallel or leading up to the meeting)
  • Specific time allotted, and dates to start, quality-oriented x% or spike, or both (although mostly not confused)(BG+)+++
    • This point itself +1 ;-)
    • see above (refactor code process)
    • see above (lack of documentation...)
    • eg how can we make reflecting on our process more quantitative
    • what are our success metrics for our process
    • Action! Brian share doc of proposed of how to measure our success [Brian]
    • Action! Schedule meeting to discuss (after one or two sprints [Tuesday March 3 proposed]); make sure scope of agenda is clear/defined [Kristen]
  • Plus +1 ones+ plus one plus same colors in etherpad+1^1*?$ + ⅞ .2$0.02NANnull Na+nil NSNull nullvoidDIV0!NIL++1--*void ∞ #@