Week in Review #7


  • Monday - Spent a large part of the day glued to the news feeds while finishing the documentation needed for this sprint's release. Got some bad news about my hoped-for shift at work.
  • Tuesday - End of sprint, sans any sense of accomplishment or celebration. The mood is grim. We skipped some retrospectives in favor of getting a release out the door, and had an "emergency" backlog grooming session for late-breaking stories. We are perpetuating a lot of unhappy patterns, and I'm not sure how to go about helping the logjam break. Everything seems to start far upstream of the team's ability to impact anything. 
  • Wednesday - Sprint planning. Velocity has steadied after last sprint's dip, so we have at least achieved a stable flow. Now to reduce that flow enough that we can spend some energy making things better. Release schedule is unfortunately also steady; since the teams were promised repeatedly that things would change come November, this is not being well received. We are making some time for internal improvements finally, so that's good. A mixed bag.
  • Thursday - Last week's personal retrospective and good cheer seem like a year ago. A day full of meetings, and I am feeling my split responsibilities keenly. 
  • Friday - Brought cider donuts, because when things are shitty, feed people.
A week of poor sleep, significant stress, and generally feeling trapped has left me with little energy for research or thinking. 

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