Previous retro notes

Team_Practices_Group/Retrospectives/2016-12-15

Next Facilitator:

Grace

Previous retro action items

GG create Phab task T153371 as placeholder to move CSAT conversation forward
- DONE
JA will facilitate the next retro (tentatively scheduled Jan 25)
- DONE
KS will do any necessary redaction and circulate notes for review and then post on wiki
- DONE

Notable Events Since 2016-12-15

Holiday break
Dev Summit & All Hands
- GG/KL introduce Unconf
- AWJR “Hacking our brains (SCARF)”
- AR first “gap analysis” meeting with some design folks @ Dev Summit; very productive conversation
- Coaching clinic
- TPG IRL
  - SoTPG <- State of TPG meeting
  - Phab goal tracking overhaul conversation
  - Team photo
- Rooftop Wolves - where are our pics?!
Some staff departures
Team jargon
- Star Date 2107
Quarterly Check-In
- Wrapped up LE baseline, [insert other q goals here]…Joel is The Slide Advancer™
  - Thx TSA
TPG internal stuff
- [F|Ph]uture of Phab conversations
- (1) [NH] Major TPG scheduling challenges
- Organizational Change interest group (aka Tea Time Prime)
- Possibility of headcount increase
- Adopted Engagement Matrix as our Model of Engagement v3.0
[1] [GG] Engagements
- Old engagements
  - Finished statement of purpose with design
  - Phate of Phlog?
- New engagements
  - Tech Debt
  - Seddon
  - Editing Department transition

Working Well

GG: the leaderless “Conversation about Phab”
GG: pairing!
- Had a great experimental pairing with Joel when we were both refining the same sentences at the same time :)
- Some a-synch and just-in-time pairing with KL on Unconf intro
- GG: carpooling! JA and I experimented with communal, non-MUNI-based travel for locals
Max: Good chat with TPG IRL about work tracking
- Got out of the Groan Zone
Max: TPG Coaching Clinic was a success
- Plenty of signups
- Good feedback
- Encouraged by the candidness of new and old customers
- Fun to coach volunteers
- Yet another successfully guided TPG experiment
Max: Enjoying the improvements made to
- Professional development (plans)
  - Nice to write it all down and come back to it later to tweak/review progress
- Quarterly check-in process
  - Appreciate the attention to inspecting and adapting vs shoehorned goals and metrics
- TPG Engagement Matrix
  - Much clearer, to me, than “Light” or “Embedded” et al
- Conversations with customers about engagements (Android, iOS, etc)
  - It feels empowering to set goals and boundaries, as well as normalize checking in on the engagement regularly
  - JA: Including w/Erica and with Trevor
- KS: Seems like we are making a number of substantive process improvements and experiments, and it feels really good.
Max: Finally catching my breath after handing off teams, generally the holidays
(3) [JA] [KS] [AR] Max: TPG chemistry is awesome, and it’s easy to forget because it’s always awesome. I’m reminded when I help teams where chemistry is not awesome.
- NH: what is it TPG has that other teams could use? MB: Patience, mindfulness, ability to say no, willingness to [F|Ph]ilosophize. KS: Trust, respect, empathy.
Max: Presentations about org change (aka ‘the meeting that also feels like teatime’ ‘Teatime Prime’ ‘Other Teatime’)
Max: I often find myself, when figuring out how to guide others or simply communicate my own ideas, asking, “What would [insert TPGer] do or say here?” It makes my job so much easier and is a testament to TPG as a whole as well as a group of solid leaders.
AR: General TPG collaborative support/pairing around various dev summit/all-hands activities
JA: Finally made a decision for Phate of Phlogiston

Not Working Well

Max: Dev Summit and All Hands are exhausting (plus the week after was similar for me since many on my teams stayed)
- Long way to go when you live in Oakland/aren’t hotel’d or live in center of SF
- Feels like locals have double duty with tending to DS/AH plus local life responsibilities.
  - Didn’t get the “everybody is remote this week” vibe that we got with Editing Offsite in Seattle.
- Not particularly introvert-friendly (basically interacting with other humans from 8 AM to 8 PM each day, not much down/alone time, even in designated rooms/areas)
  - +1, but: propose an Unconf topic where you can rep intros to non-intros and I hid downstairs for a while on Unconf day which recharged me (GG)
- Too loud.
(10) [KL] [GGx4] [ARx3] [NH][KS] Max: Sometimes when we need consensus we just agree because we are tired of consensus’ing.
- False escape from the Groan Zone? Doomed to return?
- Groupthink
- GG: could use the “if we don’t decide in time, forced cooling off period” thing
- KS: risk is, if we put off the action during the cooling off, live with adequate instead of perfect, that’s fine. But for the matrix, I caved in for expediency because I didn’t feel strongly enough. That is consensus (not unanimity) in action. But there is a risk if we keep doing that, that we might force people to accept unpalatable options
- GG: Use the modified gradients of agreement? KS: yes, we should try.
- MB: less consensus decision-making, or do fewer things that require consensus.
- KL: Decision rule up front.
(14) [GG] [NHx4] [MBx6][ARx2][KS] Max: Scheduling TPG as a group remains a challenge.
GG: have we had 2 consecutive weeks of following the new TPG split meeting format yet?
- JA: Still not sure what happens in what meeting.
- KS: I just follow the agendas. But I think we need tweaks.
- (1) [JA] GG: we should hold off on the retro until we get two straight consistent weeks with the new process.
(1) [JA] GG: can we please stop misspelling by substituting “ph” for “f” in any word with an “f” in it that comes up in conversations about Phab?
- Why would you limit our phreedom?
  - Phrustrated Grace is phrustrated.
  - [Ph/f]obia

[GG]

[KL]

Discussion

Homework: None. Don’t fill this out as homework.

(14) [GG] [NHx4] [MBx6][ARx2][KS] Max: Scheduling TPG as a group remains a challenge.
- What’s so painful?
- MB: something has changed in staff and engagements so that [it’s now impossible to book team-wide time]. Do we want to change things so that [there’s more of a shared window for TPG meetings]?
- KS: two of our weekly meetings collide [for several TPGers]. Tea-time is too late for NH. Even 30 minutes open for all TPGers is hard to find.
- GG: If we did less, we might have more time. We might be able to re-jigger the schedules, but there are a lot of pieces of this puzzle.
- MB: Have we investigated, as we did months ago, rescheduling, now that NH is settled in?
- NH: Most of my mtgs align, so the existing TPG schedule mostly fits. That’s why I haven’t pushed on it. My main concern is teatime, since it’s really late. I might be moving time zones soon, so might not be worth turning it upside down right now.
- JA: What did we do when we investigated scheduling?
- MB: Thread to see about availability, what’s optional, what’s movable. Making sure we all had calendars update with optionality. We paused because we didn’t know what everyone’s schedule would be, but we have a better idea now.
- GG: I’m fine if someone wants to investigate, but the teams we work with have constraints. E.g. not before 9 in SF; meetings that start/end at unusual times.
- JA: One thing might be to try to find an hour that we would all book, but we would only use it if we have a topic. Is it worth someone doing something about it? [a few votes yes, and GG seemed to volunteer to investigate. No decision.]
(10) [KL] [GGx4] [ARx3] [NH][KS] Max: Sometimes when we need consensus we just agree because we are tired of consensus’ing.
- Voted. Inconclusive.
- Proposal: Re-visit next month
- Proposal: Encourage each other not to do it, or at least to be aware and express that’s what’s happening
(3) [JA] [KS] [AR] Max: TPG chemistry is awesome, and it’s easy to forget because it’s always awesome. I’m reminded when I help teams where chemistry is not awesome.
[1] [GG] Engagements
(1) [JA] GG: can we please stop misspelling by substituting “ph” for “f” in any word
- DECISION: drop the ph
(1) [NH] Major TPG scheduling challenges
(1) [JA] GG: we should hold off on the retro (new meeting format) until we get two straight consistent weeks with the new process.
- DECISION: Yes, hold off

New action items

JA: Share Phabricator reporting discussion with TPG
JA: document 2 decisions and 2 awarenesses raised
GG: Faciliate February retro