Andy Lester

Andy Lester started with computers early by keypunching letters to Grandma on IBM 029 punchcards. Now into his third decade of professional software development, he's the QA & Release Manager for Socialtext. Andy is also in charge of PR for The Pel Foundation and maintains over 25 modules on CPAN. Andy's two latest book projects are Mac OS X Tiger In A Nutshell from O'Reilly, and Pro Perl Debugging from Apress.

04.19.2013 Platform Retrospective

Attendees: Vered, Sarah, Jeff, Marcel, Matthew, Laura, Adam

Start working together on Tasks within a Story for more successful completed storiesKeeps people more engaged in meetings since everyone is part of storyHelps keep team focus

Continue having shorter review meetings by getting early acceptanceKeep to 15 minute Stand Up MeetingsStart discussing issues prior to meetings to keep moving forwardStop stressing to get meeting over - feel good to discuss what is needed

Work outside of Sprint prioritizationWork with Manager outside of Team to align work and time spent

Start having notes ready for last/next 24 / blocks to keep reporting quick

Start calling 'further discussion' meetings if Open Floor is going longIf Open Floor topic going long, invoke 5 minute rule to move to another timeAsk if everyone is good to stay on or need a follow on

Start - G2 reach out to anyone needing to be on Stand Up

Start, more Product Owner buy in for the detailsTo help avoid missed details where no one person owns the full processProduct review of done-done - Demo

Watch for changes to environment requiring a retestingOut of Cycle Release - CCD for all to view, exposure of release to QAOther options to expose release/changes to code/environmentsPoss: build release managerAvoid too much "process"

Stakeholder - Product OwnerWhen differences occur, how best to communicateAcceptance Criteria is contract with Product Owners

04.05.2013 Platform Retrospective

Attendees: Marcel, Adam, Jeff, Sarah, Rachel

Do not add User Stories in middle of Sprint

A lot of stories rolled over

Multi teams are requesting time of same resourcesBoth people and environmentsTime put into tasks to handle issues of prev sprint deliverablesTasks can be added as needed - but wont show in planning

Stories small enough to be end: end deliver/testAdd hours in testing stories to have hours to fix failuresTest plans cover full expectations of the Business acceptors

Doable Acceptance Criteria

Shorter, more focused meetingsFull attention in meetingsAvoid being pulled into areas not covered by team/sprint

Get acceptance prior to Review meeting where possibleAssures story has been completed