It seems like there may be some confusion around our CC sprints. It’s my job to get to the bottom of this so we can align our various resources, and tools.
Check out a few details I’ve pulled from conversations on other posts, as well as my thoughts:
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I’ve just completed the CC onboarding course, and it says the following about sprints:
Within the CC program, we practice two week sprints, from one Monday through the following Friday, in an extremely lightweight format.
If this is the case (is it?) I’d like to make the following suggestions…
A more descriptive explanation of how sprints work in the CC Onboarding course and Wiki (eg. Sprints start on Monday mornings and conclude the following Friday evening (ie. 2 weeks or 12 days). Please add your sprint update by…)
It would be helpful if the onboarding course linked to a schedule that outlines the start dates of each sprint. It will just give new CCs their bearings. I worked out the sprint schedule by looking at the dates on this post: Contributors Meetup Async Update - May 3rd, 2023 - May 15th, 2023. I think it may also be helpful if the schedule can be accessed by existing CC’s too.
I find the dates shown in various places pretty confusing:
The Listaflow emails we receive show dates for sprints from Saturday to Saturday. It would be great if we could correlate the dates with the correct sprint schedule, for example if the sprints do run from Mon - Fri we could say: It’s time to complete your Core Contributor Sprint Retrospective for Mon, 29 May to Fri, 9 June. Please add your update by…
It’ll also be helpful if we could include “Core Contributor” in the list title of the Listaflow Checkin form. When you have various lists, it’s difficult to see which one is CC related - specifically for newcomers.
The dates on the async updates are also confusing for me - I would assume they should correlate with the sprint dates? You’ll see the updates start on various week days and not on the same week day. Unless I’m missing something from the onboarding?
Anything determined here will be added to the Github scope of work. Please add your responses below, and I’ll collect feedback to determine the scope of the issue.
@Cassie Thank you for checking this! +1 to all the remarks you’ve made, it’s definitely confusing. And more details about what exactly the new core contributor will need to do, what to expect out of it, and when the sprints and their steps are would definitely help
I don’t think we have one currently, aside from inferring it from the report thread dates, or from the dates of the recurring contributor meetup, which happens exactly every two sprints. It could be useful though. The meeting is on a Tuesday, which is the first day of the new sprint – and end two weeks later on a Monday, thus the report deadline on Mondays evening. The other dates should likely be aligned to match that.
This thread is really long and I don’t want to branch it further. For course suggestions please make a ticket at Issues · openedx/training-courses · GitHub and tag me in it, and we can discuss there. Thanks!
@Cassie I have moved your original post and the discussion from Brainstorm: Better Planning, Collaboration, & Reporting for Core Contributor Work - #24 to avoid having two different threads for the same topic - you might want to edit your two posts here to remove the duplicated text. It might also make sense to pick either the forum or the ticket to have the conversation, and avoid duplications there too.
And all of your suggestions of changes make sense to me - let me know if you end up blocked to implement any of it.
Thanks @antoviaque. I’ve edited this thread and Github issue. I think it’s best to have the conversation here and then I’ll collect the results and change the description of the Github issue for the work to take place.
I agree with this approach - falls nicely ahead of the meeting! Let’s see what the others have to say…
Awesome, I’d love to possibly have this added to the Wiki for the current year. Unless there is a better solution? I just think having everything in one place / one source of truth (ie. the Wiki) would make sense to me.
Just wanted to mention that I agree with updating the name of the sprint retro questionnaire; I don’t think “Sprint Retrospective and Planning” is very clear. +1 to changing it to “Core Contributor Sprint Retrospective”.
Hi guys, I need your vote! Let’s come to a consensus on our CC sprint timelines Within the CC program, we practice two week sprints. With this in mind, when would you like sprints to start and end?
Things to consider before voting:
The Sprint Retrospective Questionnaire (Listaflow) will need to be completed before the next sprint starts
As we work in so many different timezones, @jill made the point of making it clear what the “end of sprint” time is in UTC. So I think it’s a good idea that any documentation reflects the start / end in a specific timezone.
When should Core Contributor Sprints Start and End?
Start Monday and end the next Friday
Start Tuesday and end the next Monday
Start Wednesday and end the next Tuesday
0voters
If you have any feedback on the suggested approach, or have alternative suggestions, let me know For more information about this conversation, scroll to the top of this thread ^
Once this is decided, can we be clear and indicate the “end of sprint” time in UTC?
For example, I’ve voted to start Tuesday and end the next Monday, by which I mean, start the sprint at 00:00 UTC Tuesday, which is actually 8:00pm Monday EDT.
It’s a very narrow win - 56% of you voted to start sprints on a Tuesday.
We’re also going to conducting User Interviews this month, so we’ll also ask the interviewees their thoughts on sprint start dates too. But this vote is a good base to work with.
Out of interest, without Axim included we’re getting a response rate of about 45% on the CC Checkin on Listaflow. With Axim we’re looking at 38% for this sprint. In my latest report, I’ve mentioned the proportion of hours Axim are doing in the community.
@sarina Would Axim team members complete the check-in now that I’ve called out Axim’s hours specifically?
so we can align our various resources, and tools.
