Wikimedia Discovery/Meetings/Interactive retrospective 2016-11-17

Format

• Glad/Sad/Mad: http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Glad,_Sad,_Mad
• Note that "mad" and "sad" don't have to mean literally angry or saddened. They can be used in a playful way as well.

Previous action items

• (none)
• Team Health Check notes from last month were posted:
  • https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Discovery/Meetings/Interactive_team_health_check_2016-10-06

What has happened since the last retro

The last "retro" was 2016-08-31, but the team health check was 2016-10-08 (using https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Discovery/Status_updates as a starting point)

• Team/vertical/foundation stuff
  • Deb has started integrating slowly into the Discovery Interactive Team as a quasi-Product Manager
  • Erika joined Discovery
  • New CTO
  • Yuri and Julien are attending State of the Map 2016 conference in Brussels
  • Defined KPIs and other interesting maps statistics about how we would like to gather to track and improve maps
  • Note: we had a code deployment freeze this week due to Ops having an offsite. Much of the work completed above will be released next week.
  • Worked on a draft roadmap
• Community, RFCs, documentation
  • Migrated all map usage from "href" to "service" external data (about 50 pages)
  • Ensure Maps servers can be installed easily (automation + documentation)
  • Added a Request for Comment (RfC) on refactoring Kartotherian to use an established plugin system
  • Started the discussion on the roll out plan/path for Maps
  • Added a Request for Comment (RfC) on <maplink> support for link text vs fullscreen caption text
  • Document how to use maps directly from JavaScript
  • Request for Comment - All map location names should be shown in the user's language
  • Illegal and unheralded removal of MapSourcesHooks::wfgeoLink function hook on dewikivoyage
• Code, features, fixes
  • There is now "geoshape" and "geoline" types of ExternalData - one is for polygons (e.g. cities, countries), and the other is for lines (roads, rivers). As always, make sure OpenStreetMap has WikidataID attached to be able to use them.
  • Many minor Kartographer bug fixes
  • Implement static kartotherian service with geojson layer
  • Merge Kartographer with commons-on-osm
  • Deprecate <slippymap> provided by MapSources in favor of Kartographer's <mapframe>
  • Implement first phase of map event logging
• Ops
  • maps-test* hosts running low on space
  • Maps - move traffic to eqiad instead of codfw
  • Configure new maps servers in eqiad
  • reimage maps-test* servers
  • crash of maps2* servers due to resetting of Cassandra on wrong cluster
  • incident: bad tiles generation, fix, cache invalidation and lots of discussions (which should continue)

What has made you mad?

• map data (varnish(=) caching +
  • Frustrating that changes to static maps don't show up until cache clears an hour later
  • Ticket: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T150358
• Documentation is hard and it's easy to get stuck trying to write
  • I feel your pain! (not that it helps)
  • so do i
• Documentation and discussions are all over and everywhere - hard to keep track when something new pops up on a new page
• Lots of discussion around our latest incident on a lot of different channels, but we have not touched the bottom of it yet
  • Much discussion right away, but quieted down after a couple days--seems to indicate a deeper issue within the team
  • testing infrastructure?
  • team positioning / perception by others

What has made you sad?

• non functional requirements are not getting as much attention as they should +
  • e.g. performance, testing,
  • Not enough shared responsibility across the team?
• I'm not entirely sure what are the goals of our different meetings (powwow vs phab triage, vs...) **
  • powwow - check who is working on what, if there are any blockers  ( ~~ SoS )
  • phab triage - check what we actually have to do (short term plans)
  • Sharing responsibility for facilitating the meetings helped surface a lack of shared understanding
• We don't seem to have a shared understanding of how we work (phab boards for example)
• Too many boards for a very tiny team to keep track of
• Quite a few discussion about speed / velocity / ... this is still opened and we don't have a clear shared understanding +

What has made you glad?

• we are finally getting precipitation for the first time in about 2 months - snow in Denver!
• the weather is good in NC
• Maps roadmap + link?
• We are spending some time trying to understand how we work (some minor discussion about how we use our kanban(s), ...) +
• Contributor help with depreciating <slippymap>. RolandUnger really stepped up to help address templates across Wikivoyage
• We are getting closer to event logging giving us more in-depth usage picture
• Tabular & Map data is getting closer to launch
• Yuri is trying hard to share the presidency of our team
• Number of pages with maps has increased thanks to Commons  (tens of thousands -> millions)

What didn't fit in one of the other categories?

• so many "gotchas" in creating simple maps (while trying to create a step-by-step guide)
• Feedback from Legal
  • They have been busy so it has been difficult to get the information/approval in a timely manner
  • Norms not clear about how much to push other teams
• Trust within the team needs to improve*****
• Consolidated but more focused roles**
  • We might discuss creating more focused roles where a person is more concentrated in one product/team instead of being spread (e.g. Deb, Chris, GL, Kevin)
  • Roles within the team in general are not entirely clear (PM is shared, communication is shared)
  • GL: It is really difficult to be assigned to multiple teams (e.g. prioritization), but it's also really good (e.g. cross-team learning)
  • Perhaps long-term rotation (e.g. one month) would be better: less context switching
• We have a lot of questions about how we work as a team. Should we take 10 minutes to figure out how to move forward on that *****

Discussion

• How can we move forward to improve trust and figure out how the team should work?
  • More communication within the team as there are issues--solve problems ourselves instead of bringing in "parents"
  • If there is a problem like the last crash, let's talk about it
  • Should the team get together to try to define roles, meetings, how the team should operate?
  • One idea is a "Team charter": Clear up expectations, build trust, define roles & responsibilities
    • Not just understand what you're supposed to do, but to commit to them. Commit to each other.
    • Not a set of rules, but a set of agreements
    • Quick poll about how people feel: 2 side thumbs
  • What would be the process to develop a charter?
    • Some team-building, trust-building.
    • For people who aren't spending 100% of their time with the team, clarify their time and responsibilities
    • Resolve gaps in expectations and understandings
    • 2-3 hour process; could be timeboxed
  • Need to bridge eng/non-eng divide--it's affecting our [ability to work effectively?]

Action items

• Erika will circulate a plan for team charter