Review action items from previous retrospective

None were explicitly called out. Here are likely candidates:

Get analysis and maps teams on the same page
- Improved, at least
A/B test pre-launch still happens too much in IRC
- Seems better now
Confusion around inter-team dependencies and requirements, also centred on Reading
- There are more Discovery/Reading meetings
- Planning to combine Discovery+Reading showcases (November)
Should fill in retrospective etherpad (google doc) before the meeting, to save time
- Done
Retro notes didn't get posted right away (Kevin)
- Happened, but only this week

Current retrospective format

REMINDER: The previous retrospective was Sept 14

Offsite +1
- To be more specific, the offsite was a great blend of enjoyable activities (NASA, the ocean), opportunities to get to know people (esp. over meals), and in-depth discussion about a lot of important team stuff.
Mikhail kept the place from burning to the ground while Oliver was [out]
Gerrit Cleanup Day was a mostly positive experience.
After some delay, we have another A/B test in production.
Onboarding Julien!

The time of launch (rocket in FL)
The time of this meeting (9:30am SF time)
The hours of the offsite could have been better in theory—people arrived late, the launch was very early, people stayed up late—but in practice it's a very minor quibble about a great offsite.
Gerrit Cleanup Day instructions could have been a bit clearer.
Seemed like the User Satisfaction metric was rushed at the end of the quarter, driven by the deadline (which is somewhat arbitrary) and not by being ready/done.
Common terms A/B test was finished up at the last minute, we started planning for it on ~wednesday and pushed it out by tuesday (with monday off).
- Should have had tests in mind while we were writing the code, rather than coming up with tests later
Have not completed analysis of the completion suggester tests
In general A/B test analysis should be streamlined/more organized +++++++
Erik feels pulled in many different directions (kafka, multi-datacenter, hiring, a/b tests, etc) and needs to delegate better ++++++

In general A/B test analysis should be streamlined/more organized +++++++

Don't have organized analysis process. Should have a page (if we don't) saying what we have done, what the results were, what is in progress and upcoming. Links to phab.
- Probably put a page on wiki. We have tracked in phab, but that isn't very visible.
- We probably have the info. Just need a central portal to expose it.
- Would expose if we have run a test but haven't reported on it?
- Who would be responsible for updating? Whole team. Would Dan be responsible for verifying accuracy?
- Would include recipe/checklist for all the steps to run a test from start to finish (check w/Dario)
- Kevin will take the conversation forward (check w/Oliver+Mikhail)
- What about going from conception to defined test?
Hard to have this conversation without analysts here
- Kevin will schedule something (everyone except essentials optional)

Erik feels pulled in many different directions (kafka, multi-datacenter, hiring, a/b tests, etc) and needs to delegate better ++++++

Erik has been trying to farm stuff out to others
Has been the only one doing A/B tests...hoping to pass some to Julien
Are there tasks that ONLY Erik can take on?
- A/B tests yes but improving.
- Kafka yes because he invented it. Need to spread knowledge around. Maybe present at the showcase?
- How about a team tech talk? Get developers in a room and deep-dive into Kafka or whatever.
Look at where the big chunks of time are going. What is Erik in a unique position to
Something to consider: If Erik took a week off, what would suffer badly? What about a month?
Hiring: Could spread the load of being a "bozo filter"? The recruiter is already doing that.