Wikimedia Mobile engineering/Strategy/2013-2014 Q1 planning

Agenda

• Goals/hopes/concerns
  • Goal: Gain clarity around overall expectations and desires of department
• Wishlist/product visioning
  • Goal: Unify department on quarterly goal(s)
• User stories
  • Goal: Gain clarity and some consensus around high-level features
• Planning poker
  • Goal: Get relative estimations of stories, identify dependencies, risks, etc.
• Discussion and Prioritization [Arthur/Maryana/Tomasz]
  • Goal: Identify at a high level how stories evolved; identify areas of alignment/overlap between apps/web
• Quick retrospective [Arthur]
  • Goal: Identify how to improve quarterly (and annual) planning meetings in the future.
• After: Mobile apps/web cross-pollination
  • Open hack time, work on what you want - app/web pairing/defection/etc encouraged

Goals/hopes/concerns

What does success look like? What are your hopes?

• Okay, okay, more realistic goal: we double our current mobile contributor pool :D
• People tell us and their friends that mobile Wikipedia is awesome
  • Hmm, they already do: (GREAT SUCCESS!)
• (Technical) Wikipedia Zero becomes further decoupled from MobileFrontend
• Low error rates (for things like uploads)
• Other teams and volunteers making mobile things / making mobile optimised features
• Smaller codebase for MobileFrontend (upstreamed changes, HTML transformations killed with fire)
• Apps are well liked by users, get significant usage share
• Vector desktop skin looking more like mobile
• Low to nonexistent community pushback
• People suggest other great things to do with the apps and web that show how much they're using it
• Experienced editors recommend Mobile as a way to 'get work done' to their friends
• We've hit at least 1/4 of our annual goal!
• Apps uptake increases, apps ease of use increases
• Official apps have better ratings than 3rd party apps on both app stores
• Apps make possible scenarios that aren't possible via Mobile Web or Desktop
• People do useful things with our apps and mobile site
• A selfy of Barack Obama on the Barack Obama article (that would be a success to me! (to me too :)))
• More teams/projects build mobile-friendly features
• Infinite ZeroRated partners in every country

What does failure look like? What are your concerns?

• MobileFrontend3 extension
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Archive/2013/04#Missing_author.2Fsource_parameters_on_mobile_uploads:_fix_coming
• We can't sustain our current monthly contributors numbers (we dip below 1K)
• People tell us and their friends that mobile Wikipedia sucks
• Other teams create desktop-only features
• People are confused about how to use our apps and or using the web so go back to desktop
• People on wiki hate us, the word 'mobile' brings groans from multiple people
• Apps aren't used/get poor reviews
• Everyone works way too many hours - works late, works weekends
• We can't retain any users; we just get drive-bys #selfiepocalypse
• Users who do register become inactive
• Apps and web go in completely different directions
• Someone creates MobileFrontend3 haha snap
• Community stones the mobile dept
• People create lots of useless stuff that has to be cleaned up via the mobile site and apps
• Apps usage drops or they are poorly received
• More regressions than new features

Retrospective

What worked well?

• didn't feel like two days of meetings
• was not exhausting ( or rly?!)
• it was a beautiful exhaustion
• prolific user story creation+
• yesterday was awesome and productive
• having arthur in the office+++
• having design involvement
• SO MANY STORIES \o/
• broke down some more of our ideas for apps into manageable pieces+
• collaboration of the team+
• hearing about the analytic results+1
• very creative brainstorming - lots of engagement from everyone :)
• Got thrown into the water today, drank a lot.
• GOOD contentious converstaions+

What didn't work well?

• Apps and mobile web didn't mix too much+1++++++++
  • Talk a little more about what we plan to build, identify more places for cooperation
  • Thinking of stories in isolation was not good - maybe have a rep from each hanging out with the other
• Get out of the office for this in the future, environment should invigorate discussion+++++
  • Need to be sure to support remoties
• Lack of a human mission statement for the next 3 sprints+++++
  • • not a number, something more qualitative; something you'd tell your mom and she would understand+

• R37
  • Heat, noise (both for remoties and folks in the room)+++
• Office LieFi sucks
• R66 LiFi (TM), had to cannabalize ethernet cord from phone
• 3 friggin days+++
• Audio was worse than usual, especially today. I've got a headache from people constantly knocking on the table.+
• Very little dev work++
• Saturday Morning 2 AM!
• apps didn't get to estimation, we had lots to talk about :)
• apps depends a lot on WikiData, of which we didn't have enough information+
• Monte's wifi connection&Jon's
• i need coffee today
• SO MANY STORIES \o/ <- writing them all together instead of individually might have helped us dedupe+ +
• no general gauge of what 1 vs 400 planning poker score means for user stories that we created++
• This iteration started on Monday but has been disrupted+
• sometime people shot down ideas during ideation rather than just being creative+
• need more veggie food :)+
• (Hammocks?)++

What still puzzles you?

Isn't Kaldari supposed to wear a hat?+1 When do we start ordering pizzas for us remoties? How apps and mobile web are going to live together going forward+++++

• • overlapping more in sprint planning meetings, or other planning meetings in general?
  • finding more unity between features/feature ideas

How does Vector fit into the mobile web future+