/
CAD Team Retrospective Takeaways

Team Commitments

Sprint Pearl

What prevented us from getting the planned work done?

  • Priorities changed during the sprint - YIM Application - Client needs reprioritized

  • Not enough research planned for new features

    • Defects and stories

  • Issues found pre-deployment - additional testing by Dev and QA in advance of deployment

  • Support issues came up but tasks were not removed

  • SDF Work fallen through the cracks due to team turnover - Luis handover

    • Offboarding process? Documentation as work is completed?

Perfection is not always an attainable or the best outcome

  • Our team was trying to fix issues that were present in the charting library

Can we get UI/UX feedback on features that have given us trouble?

  • PDFs, Excel Exports, Charts

YSB 4.2 Deployment

Sprint Cloud Atlas

  • Goals and tickets are a team commitment, not an individual commitment.

  • Dev team will take advantage of refinement to dig into language in stories and answer questions/remove ambiguity related to requirements.

  • Communication between Devs and QA helps keep the process moving smoothly

  • Questions about prioritization should be discussed daily during standup.

  • Action Item: Follow up on Accessibility training for Dev and QA.

Team Lessons Learned

  • Define team strategy and expectations for versioning

  • and dev team to prioritize working with OutSystems to research/spin up an internal forge

  • Team to help make Project Plan a core part of the process

  • to investigate Accessibility Training Opportunities between QA, Dev and Accessibility

  • Team to commit to more active communication and review in retrospectives

  • Team to commit to bringing up issues proactively

Developers

Sprint Pearl

  • Development Team - Versioning can be more complex than a simple check - make sure to estimate accordingly and share with the team.

    • Review code before estimating

  • Development Team and QA - Versioning requires additional testing that we are not currently executing

  • Development Team - Versioning - Post-launch cleanup of versioning needs to be planned for for Dev and QA team (smoke test)

    • Every release should include a post-launch task of version clean up

  • Lessons Learned 4.2:

    • Development Team - Removed Button Functionality

      • Challenge Assumptions and smoke test functionality (Edit and Add button)

    • Development and QA Team - Pre-deployment validation and smoke testing

      • Dedicated pre-launch smoke testing of environment to be deployed (load test)

    Lessons Learned 4.3:

  • Development Team - New functionality built for the first time - very difficult to estimate and plan for

    • How can we “revisit” things - getting things working != the best, most maintainable version

  • Opportunities to test lost throughout feature development

    • As charts were developed, report was not tested

    • By the time we reached the end, there were significant changes implemented

  • Planning for Research and creating research subtasks is very important.

  • Let’s develop best practices around PDF reports and accessibility and implement them during the initial design process

    • IE, we don’t need to print buttons, drop downs, etc

  • for highly complex or have gone back and forth to testing many times, 1:1 meetings between testers and devs can be very helpful

YSB 4.2 Deployment

  • Dev team to walk through the Acceptance Criteria more deliberately in refinement

  • Dev: User stories needs to be broken down more in refinement and in advance (example: https://yaleits.atlassian.net/browse/CUS-13587 )

  • Raise red flag further in advance

  • Estimates need to reflect planning on working on one story at once

Sprint Cloud Atlas

  • Ask more questions in refinement about specifics in implementation

    • Example: “Search all text” - is this grant entity only, or all entities?

  • Involve other technical collaborators during initial planning phase, specifically around system architecture

    • IE, Data Services

  • Versioning must be a part of all development moving forward to help with individual deployments

  • QA and Dev could include system/browser specifics in bugs/defects

  • Team needs to document standards and practices around PDFs

  • Action Item: Standardize and document process for ensuring versioning for all features moving forward

Team Lessons Learned

  • Action Item - review the design standard documents in the weekly dev meeting

  • Action Item: to collaborate with to formalize standard documentation of design

  • Action Item: Dev team to commit to documenting reusable, successful tools in the moment

  • Action Item: Dev team to review Application Feature Inventory - https://yaleits.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/CADKS/pages/4049371146

  • Action Item: and to ensure that all documented standards (check lists and templates) include Security and Accessibility planning. If it does not yet exist, create documentation.


QA

Sprint Pearl

  • Prioritize stories that are ready for UAT to provide time for client changes.

  • Versioning requires additional testing that we are not currently executing

  • Pre-deployment validation and smoke testing

    • Dedicated pre-launch smoke testing of environment to be deployed (load test)

  • for highly complex or have gone back and forth to testing many times, 1:1 meetings between testers and devs can be very helpful

YSB 4.2 Deployment

Sprint Cloud Atlas

  • QA and Dev could include system/browser specifics in bugs/defects

  • Screen size and standard screen resolutions must be standardized & documented for testing and Devs

Team Lessons Learned

  • Action Item: and QA team to create standard documentation on process and templates/checklist for UAT

  • Action Item: , and to work with Omar to formalize Security and Accessibility standards

  • QA team to share their testing process

BA

YSB 4.2 Deployment

Sprint Cloud Atlas

Team Lessons Learned

  • Action Item: Pre-kickoff release planning with the entire team

PM

YSB 4.2 Deployment

Sprint Cloud Atlas

  • Impromptu deployments need to be documented, go through the change process, and signed off on internally before communicated to the client.

Team Lessons Learned

  • Action Item: Review Project Plan continuously and integrate dev feedback earlier in the process

  • to help standardize and publicize documentation across project deliverables

  • to present metrics based on estimation vs. actual during retrospectives moving forward

  • and to define metrics to be reviewed

  • to review project plans on Mondays to allow for review and feedback of deployment schedule