A lot of things worked pretty well this sprint compared to the last. Communication, effort, work, progress, collaboration, planning, and more were all present and at a great level compared to the last sprint. We still had our own section that we mainly worked in but there was plenty of collaboration for tackling a difficult issue, researching an issue, or just divvying up work should someone have free time. I think that our Sprint 2 goal was very concrete and our issues that we made at the start of the sprint as well as throughout led to a smooth sailing to the finish line.
I wouldn’t say that there was anything that didn’t work well but rather things that could be worked on. Communication could always be improved, and even though it’s a night and day difference between Sprint 1, there were some points in which it would’ve been nice to hear from certain team members what was going on or why they weren’t present. This may be more of just my personal feelings but there is one member who handles almost all Gitlab organization and use and takes notes of our meetings, and I’m not sure if it’s for their sake or for the team’s sake, but I feel that they could ask the rest of the team to help with any of these. They are the most adept at using Gitlab and I assume wants to stay on top of things and as organized as possible but I’m certain other team members could help out even if a little.
To improve as a team, communicating when a team member can’t make the meeting and making good progress and decisions without certain team members present would be great. I think we divvy up our issues well but other work that aren’t exactly issues could be divided up between members especially if it’s rather menial.
I think I could’ve gathered a better idea of our group’s work and flow and what other team members are working on. For the Sprint 2 Review, I prepared to share what I had worked on but was wholly unprepared to share what other members have worked on and present our work.
The apprenticeship pattern I felt was most relevant to my experiences was “Confront Your Ignorance” from Chapter 2. This pattern states that “There are tools and techniques that you need to master, but you do not know how to begin… and there is an expectation that you already have this knowledge.” The solution to this pattern states to “Pick one skill, tool, or technique and actively fill the gaps in your knowledge about it.” Although this pattern doesn’t exactly describe my experience during the sprint, it felt the closest out of all the other patterns. Rather than tools and techniques, I would say that I need to better understand our group’s work and plans as well as individual members’ work. To handle this, I could go through our Gitlab issues seeing what has been accomplished and who is assigned to what, I could explore our repositories to get a better understanding of the individual pieces of the project, and I could simply ask my team members about what they have worked on, what they plan to work on, and their idea of our group’s work. Taking notes would’ve been a great option as well due to how much information might be shared during our meetings.
From the blog CS@Worcester – Kyler's Blog by kylerlai and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.