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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 (“could this be an email?” 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 we’d do:

  • nothing! We are off the hook :)

Five Finger Retro with time for free form:

Pinky: Overlooked (things we don’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, “This is what it must be like to be Grace”
  • 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: can’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 he’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 he’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: Didn’t like

  • GG: it’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, doesn’t serve all of our needs, is buggy, and can’t or won’t be upgraded as we identify issues. We’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 again :) )
  • 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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