2015-05-29 : Sprint 3 retrospective

Sailboat exercise

We used the Sailboat technique to identify wind (positive forces that are propelling / would propel us forward) and anchors (negative forces that are slowing us down). We first wrote our ideas on sticky notes, then grouped the common ones. After grouping, we voted to be able to discuss the most relevant ones. Finally, we gathered ideas on how to improve our way of working.

List of sticky notes collected in the exercise

  • Wind

    • Planning

      *   Project planning
      • Target: only MVP
      • Target: MindTrek
      • Business needs + user stories

    • Working as a team

      *   Standups
      • Team work + helping others
      • Sharing tasks

    • Reusing

      *   Reuse
      • Meteor packages and boilerplate

    • Making decisions

    • Meteor + JavaScript learning resources, Discover Meteor

    • Anchors

    • Learning

      *   Lacking documentation in API Umbrella
      • Knowledge in coding
      • Learning curves
      • Knowledge about API Umbrella
      • Lack of seniority in implementation

    • Project planning

      *   Inexperience in project management
      • Lack of long term planning - yet
      • Ambiquity of user needs
      • Difficulty in estimation
      • Bouncing between projects
      • Unforeseen tasks during sprint

    Ideas and Discussion

    Planning

    • Knowledge issues affect planning (e.g. decision making)

    • Find tasks to suit individual skills

      *   Team members self-select tasks

    • Conduct a user story planning poker ASAP

    • Have post-stand-up discussions for specific topics

      *   issues
      • technologies
      • ideas

    • Estimate remaining working time for tasks during daily stand-ups

    Decision making

    • Allow specialists to make relevant decisions
    • The group can vote on more general decisions
    • Trust decisions made by others

    Reuse

    • We are using many existing efforts
    • Before building our own tools, solutions, etc., check out existing options

    Learning Curve

    • Decisions made now have lasting effects
    • We need courage to make timly decisions
    • We decided to use JavaScript for primary development (with CoffeeScript for special cases)
    • Balance between new and known technologies
    • Each task has a learning curve

    • Do tasks together

      *   reduces stress
      • socially fulfilling
      • talk through problems

    • Do more pair programming

    • Use existing learning materials
      *   learn in spare time
      • conduct co-learning sessions