<div dir="ltr">Thanks for all the advice everyone. I really appreciate it. <div><br></div><div>I think I'll set up our first retrospective for after the holidays, and probably try to do them every two sprints or something. </div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 5:04 PM, Katie Horn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:khorn@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">khorn@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div>If I may add a few personal observations to the stack...<br><br></div>* The first few retrospectives you have, are going to be fascinatingly awkward. Particularly so for established teams.<br>
</div>I've
seen this happen several times, and heard tales of many more situations
that fit the same pattern: If any of the participants don't feel like
they have had an appropriate official venue in which to raise issues
until you get to the "What didn't work" part of your first
retrospective, the whole meeting will probably blow up. If I had to set
up new retros again, rather than try to time-box it to something reasonable (which would end up shutting some people down) I'd give the first few retrospective meetings about
3x the calendar time I'd want to regularly spend once the situation settles into routine. <br></div><div><br></div><div>* Keeping at it is probably the easiest way to make it better.<br></div><div>Once the team gets used to having a retrospective, each individual's queue
of things to raise as issues will eventually empty (or at least
stabilize). This both shortens meetings (fewer issues to discuss), and ensures that all the issues that are brought up, are relatively fresh. Fresh issues are vastly preferable to stale ones: They will be relevant, and they won't have had time to fester and become, well, awkward. <br>
</div><div><br></div><div>So basically, don't let the first few scare you off. It seems to me that it always takes a few, to get the whole team to a place in which retrospectives serve their intended function. <br></div>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
-Katie</font></span></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 4:52 PM, Arthur Richards <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:arichards@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">arichards@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div>On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 5:49 PM, Tomasz Finc <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:tfinc@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">tfinc@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">And if we haven't given you enough info. You can find all the notes<br>
from the Mobile Apps team retrospectives on our team page<br>
<br>
<a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team" target="_blank">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Apps/Team</a><br>
<div><div><br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></div><div>Oo oo! And the mobile web team:</div><div><a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web/Team" target="_blank">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Mobile_web/Team</a> </div>
</div><div><div><br></div>-- <br>Arthur Richards<div>Software Engineer, Mobile</div><div>[[User:Awjrichards]]</div><div>IRC: awjr</div><div><a href="tel:%2B1-415-839-6885%20x6687" value="+14158396885" target="_blank">+1-415-839-6885 x6687</a></div>
</div></div></div>
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