Hi Francis and Robert. As you know, I've been sending out weekly retrospective emails every Friday. These include a "project status" section, and include the discussions and analysis we have of success and problems we had in the past week.
I've also been sending out biweekly emails. These include summaries, bugs closed, tracked bugs, and goals for the next two weeks. I'm writing you for two reasons, both in relation to the biweekly emails. First, those biweekly emails seem very similar to parts of the retrospective emails, and I wonder if we can reduce some duplication. Second, those biweekly emails were supposed to be the meeting preparation for actual calls. Those calls fell off the calendar for some reason that I don't know right now. I asked you two on 5/16 to propose another meeting time or give me some other direction on what to do and, to my memory and record, didn't get a reply. To be honest, that suited me fine. Given the preparation I was providing, I felt the meeting could have been handled more efficiently via email. I think we should all face up to this situation, though, and make a conscious decision about what to do about it. I'll offer some observations and a proposal to start the conversation off. I am scheduled to prepare a biweekly status email for this Wednesday. Therefore, it would be convenient, though not necessary, if we came to a resolution before then. I ask everyone, including yellow squad folks, to weigh in if you have something to add. Observations: * The biweekly email's summary is essentially duplicated by the retrospective's project status. I don't think the biweekly summary adds sufficient additional value. * The biweekly email's "bugs closed" list is nice as a statement of accomplishment and a review of what each of us in the squad have done in the past couple of weeks. The kanban board does the same on a daily basis. The only difference is that we aggregate two weeks and celebrate it in the biweekly email, and we call it to the attention of Robert, Francis, and whoever else reads. I'm not confident that the additional value is commensurate with the cost, even though the cost is relatively small. * The biweekly email's collection of the status of tracking bugs is nice as a statement of things we might need help on. However, the kanban board keeps track of this, and Francis and I have a chance to review any blocking problems every Tuesday. Again, I question the additional value of aggregating the data for the biweekly email. * The biweekly email's statement of goals is the only truly unique aspect of the email, to my evaluation. It has not been incredibly valuable of late, but I think it still should be kept, because it has been valuable in the past to clarify expectations between ourselves, our manager (Francis), and our customer (Robert). * The biweekly call, when we had it, to me felt unnecessary, given the preparation I had done. If everyone read the email/document I had prepared, it could have been much, much shorter, and perhaps we could have had it only if someone wanted to discuss something after reading the email. >From those observations, I will make two alternate proposals. Gary's option 1: I no longer prepare biweekly emails. I include proposed project goals in the weekly retrospective minutes that I produce Friday or Monday. Everyone in this group reads them, and we have a standing *available* time on alternate Tuesdays (New Zealand/Australia Wednesday) to have a call if anyone requests clarification or discussion. By default *we do not have the call*. If we have the call, the agenda is set by the person or people who requested the call. Gary's option 2: As above, except the default is we *do* have the call. To cancel it, Robert, Francis and Gary have to check in with one another and agree that the call is unnecessary. If we do have the call, the agenda should be set dynamically, and should generally not include reviewing the retrospective email. Observations? Votes? Alternate proposals? Thanks Gary -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~yellow Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~yellow More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
