For this sprint, overall, the team work significantly better. Not only did we continue to communicate well with one another, but there was a lot of improvement because we were much more experienced with the project. Not only were we more familiar with the coding side of things, but since we had a much firmer understanding of SCRUM as a whole, it allowed us to skip through a lot of the learning process that happened in the first sprint and get right to work instead.
For one, we had accurate weights for almost all of our issues. This is a huge contrast with Sprint 1, as Sprint 1 was littered with issues that should have been weights of 2-3, but instead they were 1s. With this more correct weights, we were able to delegate a lot better, and we also were just more aware of the types of problems we were facing. In Sprint 1 for example, I had moments where I picked up a ‘1’ weight issue, only to be stuck on it for almost a whole week or more because I had to learning about how things worked. Now in Sprint 2, because I can skip a bit of the learning, since I had already did it during Sprint 1, many of the ‘1’ weight issues were actually ‘1s,’ thankfully!
On top of being more familiar with the code and the SCRUM process, we realized that we as a team, did not focus on the issues as heavily as we should have. Although we worked as a group somewhat in Sprint 1, Sprint 2 was much much more collaborative. We realized that the system is a lot more interlocked than we realized, and because of that, if Sam was working on one portion of the API, Moses might have insights, or vice versa. Many instances of issues being tackled was one of us starting it, and another member jumping in and finishing it together.
Other than the improvements in understand and our teamwork, I tackled setting up the Reporting Integrations repo. I figured that since everyone was working on the API, Backend, or a mix of the two, it would be a bit easier for me to tackle the creation of a whole separate part of the Reporting Systems. I think, this was for the best because although help might have useful at times, overall, I was worried that since the Reporting Integrations was going to be made from the ground up essentially, it would become a situation of too many cooks ruin the pot. I am glad I did this because once I set up Reporting Integrations, I had a very solid understanding of the different tools that we used such as the Pipeline, and with that understanding, I was able to help much of the team with some issues.
Pipeline updates
Reporting Integrations
Multi-Architecture Conversion Backend, Frontend, Swagger CLI
After that, things became much smoother as people collectively got a hold on the issues, and though we are still lacking experience in many areas, it feels like we have a better grasp on everything as a whole. I think that moving forward, we should keep our pacing, and improve our communication even more potentially. I do really enjoy how we are much more collaborative on the different issues, and though sometimes we have to focus on our own task, the team work aspect is very refreshing and helpful. We are almost like each other’s rubber ducks.
Somethings that still aren’t too good is that we still only focus on working together when we are face to face, but I think that is overall fine. It could be better if we paired up, or had meetings outside of class and would make things smoother, but things are passable. Also, this isn’t exactly our whole responsibility either!
From the blog CS@Worcester – Bored Coding by iisbor and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.