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Team Practices Group/Retrospectives/2016-01-27

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

Facilitator:

  • Grace
  • Facilitator at Feb 2016 retro: David

Last retro was Dec 16

  • There were no recorded action items

Themes/Actionables:

  • More efficient/effective use of time, especially meetings/calendaring?
    • Action! Push back on meetings as needed (ā€œcould this be an email?ā€ if it could, please use tags and put due dates in subj line), flag ineffective uses of time (respectfully), consider if attendees are really optional
  • Requirements for core/strategic
    • Strengthen understanding/relationship w/Wes and Lila on this
  • how to administer CSAT for higher participation?
  • Strategy
    • Encourage adaptive/reactive over predictive/planned?

Since Dec 16:

  • Had second group chat with Boryana (first of our regular, unstructured convos)
  • Started chats with Wes about Core Work as well as TPG Goals checkins
  • Holidays (with extra time off)
  • Dev summit Jan 4-6
  • All hands Jan 7-8:
    • Kristen/Joel/Max Facilitation
  • Unconf session:
    • Joel
    • Strine: Good Neighbors
    • KL: Self-care in times of stress
  • Quarterly reviews
  • KRARTHUR transition
  • Multiple high-profile events relating to WMF Board
  • Lots of WMF and TPG Strategy meetings
  • Grace becomes TPG Strategy Test shepherd
  • Kevin ramps up WMF strategy facilitation
  • Joel facilitated Product Group strategy meeting
  • TPG Work Planning/SPDPP process developed and implementation started
  • a gajillion (15) Phlogiston and Core Fraction meetings
  • Grace started lightweight engagement with OIT
  • Closed CSAT and presented data at QR
  • Making more teams Phlogible
  • Holiday break/slow time
  • Semi-formally dropped phragile activities
  • Good collaboration convos with Joel and David about iOS process

What we said weā€™d do:

  • nothing! We are off the hookĀ :)

Five Finger Retro with time for free form:

Pinky: Overlooked (things we donā€™t usually pay attention to/take for granted)

  • JA: We spend most of our group time on one-off projects but most of our work time on embedded work
  • GG: Max for mentioning context switches and saying, ā€œThis is what it must be like to be Graceā€
  • MB: Feeling really stretched thin between embedding and TPG work
  • Sometimes so focused on teams that I forget there is a TPG board, other times so focused on TPG tasks that my teams are neglected
  • MB: Low CSAT participation?
  • DS: canā€™t think of anything
  • KS: TPG is really good at self-organization KL +1 +1 GG MB +1
  • KL: Progress of TPG (CSAT, tracking work, working together, strategy)

Ring Finger: A relationship:

  • GG: David, Kevin, Kristen for impromptu jumping in to help with strategy
  • MB: Wes seemed a little impatient with us when we demonstrated our breakdown of the purpose of core/strategic.
  • JA: +1. Maybe heā€™s stuck in the middle? Yes, and.
  • MB: We seem to get along well and have an ally in Boryana
  • KS: I have really enjoyed working with Suzie (on strategy)
  • DS: Wes is really chill with us, although heā€™s stressed about other things KL +1
  • KL: all of TPG Unique perspectives!
  • JA: The community and WMF reaction to org-level problems expresses my values

Middle Finger: Didnā€™t like

  • GG: itā€™s been a bit disspiriting for me to have to explain that I already work outside of Eng.
  • JA: being in so many elongated groan zones at once (all of the different levels of Strategy seem to be in Groan Zone forever; WMF and Board cultural change Groan Zones; Process change groan zone) +1 GG
  • JA: the [EPIC]s column
  • DS: We could be faster with strategy +1 GG
  • KL: Emphasis on planning over emergence +1 GG +1 KS
  • KS: Swamped with meetings +1 MB
  • MB: Phrustration
    • Phab is clunky to use, doesnā€™t serve all of our needs, is buggy, and canā€™t or wonā€™t be upgraded as we identify issues. Weā€™re building separate internal tools just to cope with the shortcomings. This deficit scope was definitely identified at least 8 months ago, as well as before deploying Phab, too. Why are we still putting up with it, when there are other, industry-standard tools that we know will help us do our work better?

Index Finger: Key takeaway

  • GG: Tea Time was weird...I missed 1/11 goal meeting, so to hear the narrative of what happened there through cryptic TT discussion was weird +1 JA
  • KS: All-hands was a reminder about how valuable in-person time is +1 GG +1 KL +1 MB
  • DS: We should be careful to not get bogged down in perfect task breakdown and use up valuable working time +1 GG
  • MB: Quarterly reviews seem to be a political burden more than anything else, and not just with TPG
  • JA: risk of making long-term plans in rapidly changing situation +1! GG
    • and reminder that current challenging context may improve
  • KL: too many

Thumb: High note

  • GG: Got to facilitate leadership roundtable and tech issues were challenging but OIT helped and it was still a lot of fun (would like to do againĀ :) )
  • MB: Phlogiston, once you get past the initial learning curve, is super cool +1 KS
  • MB: Request for Stacking remoties was heard and a tool was built
  • MB: TPG IRL was excellent as always +1 KS
  • DS: Lila responded well in QR
  • KS: Lightweight and terminated engagements +1 GG
  • JA: team willingness to dogfood process change, plus healthy (in the sense of beneficial, not the sense of copious) skepticism
  • KL: Quarterly review was very well-received
  • JA: KL covering for Arthur effectively +1 MB
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