Retrospectives

Overview

Two types of questions:

• open ended: e.g. what did you like about working with that player?
• numeric: e.g. I liked working with Jeffrey
  • 1 (strongly disagree)
  • 4 (neutral)
  • 7 (strongly agree)
  • 0 (don't have enough information for an opinion)

Three possible subjects for a question:

• cycle questions: linked to the cycle
  e.g. was this a stretch goal for you? did you have fun?
• player questions: linked to the cycle AND a player on the project (different than the player answering)
  e.g. what did you like about working with Jeffrey during this cycle?
• question questions: linked to another question.
  e.g. This feedback was kind and specific. (1 strongly disagree to 7 strongly agree)

relative contribution question:

What is the percentage contributed to the work done during this cycle? (Enter your answers as a series of space delimited numbers that add up to 100)
Jeffrey Tanner Trevor Shereef

This is basically a UI wrapper around 4 player/range questions

Considerations

• Build with an infrastructure for questions to be customized on a per learner basis in the future. For example: Jeffrey might answer different player questions for Tanner during a retrospective, than for Shereef
• Answers need to be hidden from other players. So they need to be given with a slash command, or in a separate conversation with a retrospective robot.
• Retrospectives are announced in the project channel & the chapter channel. They are conducted in a private channel with retro-bot (better a special purpose bot since it needs to be a conversation. And if lg-bot is being used for other notifications the retrospective could get confusing)
• The retrospective questions I answer that are related to a certain player are grouped together (in other words, I'm asked all four questions about Jeffrey, then all four questions about Tanner...etc.)
• Optional Anonymity: as a user I'm asked if I want my answers to player questions anonymous or not (on a per player, per retrospective basis)

User stories (prioritized)

• As a moderator, I can kickoff a retrospective for the cycle by issuing the command /cycle startretro. This command looks for the cycle that is currently in a practice state, and kicks it into retrospective state.
• As a user who is working on a project, that's part of a cycle that just got kicked into retro mode, I'm shown a notification that the cycle is now in retro mode in the project channel as well as the chapter channel.
• As a user, I'm asked the relative contribution question in a private channel with lg-bot:
  What is the percentage contributed to the work done during this cycle? (Enter your answers as a series of space delimited player handles and numbers that add up to 100)
  for example: jeffrey 25 mayatron 25 tannerwel 25 shereefb 25

Note, the retro question's example command should have the github usernames of the actual players in that project in alphabetical order, with the example numbers being the equal distribution of contribution across the players. This allows a player to copy-paste the command and modify it before submitting.

• As a user, I am notified when another player in my team has answered all their retro questions by seeing a notification in the project channel: "Jeffrey has completed their retrospective."

Half-baked stories:

• nag users if they take too long to answer
• nag users that are last to submit their retro
• feedback on feedback questions
• questions about stretchy goals
• confidence level in the answer: (see here)

Relevant Data Model

See specs in #109

generators for

• goals (in testing repository, see #28)
• chapters
• users (IDM)
• players

Be sure to synchronize data integrity b/t idm and game services (e.g., user / player IDs)

Voting Flex-Panel UI (read-only)

• includes link to goal library
• includes % of votes cast (for active players in chapter)
• display indication of whether or not voting is still open
• display current list of suggested projects, sorted by popularity (most popular at top)
• for each suggested project

  • of votes

  • special UI treatment (color, rank #) if given player has vote-ranked the project in question
• "nice-to-haves"
  • allow player to see who has voted on a particular project suggestion
  • show threshold line: any project below the line is non-viable
  • allow player to filter for "suggested by people within my skill range"

• GraphQL API tests
  • positive (when correct data is passed, behaves as expected) tests
  • at a minimum, .todo tests for negative (when incorrect / malformed data is passed, errors are thrown) tests

See: https://app.compose.io/learners-guild-ltd/support/tickets/191799785

• fork widget can be included in the issue template for goals (see: #30) that can invoke a webhook to take whatever actions are necessary on the back-end

Right now, there are two simple navigation paths:

• view all chapters
• view all players

However, as the number of chapters and players grows, this will become tedious. Allow the players list to show a subset of the players (namely, just those for a given chapter).

Needed for rocketchat-lg-sso/#7.

• chapters need a goalRepository (URL) attribute
• when a new chapter is created
  • a corresponding GitHub Team should be created within the organization (extracted from goalRepository URL)
  • the corresponding GitHub Team should be granted read / write access to the goalRepository
• when a new player signs-up
  • the player should be added to the Team on GitHub for their chapter

front-end

• show progress bar if loading

for each suggested project, render

• candidate goal name
• # of votes
• special UI treatment (color?) if given player has vote-ranked the project in question
• load cycle candidate goals when component mounts
• dispatch new candidate goals when received via socket

back-end

• index goalURL
• group by goalURL and count # votes
• change feed should push data when voting happens for current cycle / chapter
• ensure candidate goals are sorted by # of votes
• reconnect if socket hangs up

• each challenge is a github repository
• popularity based on # of stars
• each challenge has a corresponding chat channel
• /info command in chat channel shows:

  • of stars

  • of forks

  • of open / closed issues

Command(s)

• /vote GOAL_IDENTIFIER [GOAL_IDENTIFIER]
  • GOAL_IDENTIFIER is an issue-number or URL on the craft-specific goal-library repository
  • array of ranked-choices (support 2, primary and secondary, in first version)
  • first suggestion counts as a vote
  • if only a single goal is given to the command, that player is casting two votes for the same issue
  • later votes cast overwrite earlier votes for same user

TODO

• initial cycle schema and API endpoints
• vote schema and API endpoints

See Also

rocketchat-lg-slash-commands/#4

Include a target="blank" link to the Goal Library

• each project shows MECC (Mean Effective Contribution Cycles)
• any project with a MECC + / - a (TBD) number of cycles will be highlighted
• list can be sorted based on this metric

@jeffreywescott commented on Mon Apr 04 2016

Project Assignment

Related: learning-os issue 227

Requirements

• players shuffled into teams at beginning of each cycle
• players must be in same chapter
• team size (aim for 4)
• additional interface for moderators to kick-off the process of assigning players to projects / teams
• channel created for each project
  • named: <random-word>-<goal-number> (obviously de-duplicated)
  • @tannerwelsh to determine auto-join, auto-leave, auto-favorite interactions
  • lg-bot sends welcome message to project and chapter channels with:
    • notify player @Handles, "Welcome to #channel_name. Here is your goal."

Relevant (New) Data Model

Project

• has many players
• has one goal
• has a start time
• has a duration (# of cycles)
• players can change at cycle boundary

render

• An indicator that clearly shows if voting is still open (cycle is in GOAL_SELECTION state) or if it has closed (cycle is in PRACTICE) state.

@jeffreywescott commented on Mon Apr 04 2016

• keep a chapter history in the user record (array of past chapters)
• a player may only be active in one chapter at a time.

• menu has 'chapters' option for users with 'moderator' or 'backoffice' roles
• chapters lists chapters and has a 'new chapter' option (backoffice only)
• clicking on a chapter in the chapter list allows editing of the chapter (backoffice only)

a GitHub issue template should be provided to players who wish to add Goals to the Goal library

Discussion forthcoming ...

The UI:

• display the list of Goals that have been suggested (for the next cycle), sorted from most popular to least popular
• next to each goal, a UI element will allow Goals to be voted up / down
• list will update automatically as votes are cast and new suggestions are made

Blocked on outcomes from LearnersGuild/learning-os #230

There will be an organization on GitHub (separate from Learners Guild) that holds craft-specific repositories.

• issues on these craft-specific repositories represent Goals
  • issue templates should be provided for these repositories
• every Player in the game has the ability to create new issues on these repositories

Commands

• /pause [num cycles] [player handle]
  • e.g., /pause 2 @bob, /pause 3, /pause
  • if not specified, [num cycles] is infinity
  • [player handle] only valid if command issued by someone with pauseOrPlayPlayer capability
  • otherwise, marks the player who is issuing the command as paused in the game
• /play [player handle]
  • e.g., /play @bob, /play
  • [player handle] only valid if command issued by someone with pauseOrPlayPlayer capability
  • otherwise, marks the player who is issuing the command as playing in the game

Possible player-state transitions:

Right now, you have to:

• load the chapters list
• click on an individual chapter
• click the "Create Invite Code" button, complete the form, then submit

Instead, we should have the "Create Invite Code" next to each chapter in the chapters list ".

• player "playing" or "paused" state attribute
• API to update player state

Chapter

• has a cycle duration
• has a cycle start time
• has a chat channel

Goal

• has a URL
  • potentially use GH issues as goals
  • has zero or more challenges (links in Markdown)
  • has comments (issues have comments)

Project

• has many players
• has one goal
• has a start time
• has a duration (# of cycles)
• players can change at cycle boundary

Retro

• belongs to a cycle
• has many players

• create separate GitHub organization "Learners Guild Game"
• create a testing Goal repository for JS Web Development craft
• create a production Goal repository for JS Web Development craft

• happens within game service
• makes an API call to idm service to create the invite code

• set up background jobs
• create a background job to run every minutes that queries IDM for any new users since the most recent player create date
• chapters have an inviteCodes [array] attribute
• if user in player role, players are created
  • associate with chapter that contains the invite code used to invite the player

render

• percentage (%) of active players in the chapter have already voted

back-end

• compute percentage

@jeffreywescott commented on Mon Apr 04 2016

• attributes
  • name
  • cycle length
  • inception time
  • channel name (?)
• invite codes may be associated with chapters
• users may belong to a chapter

@shereefb commented on Mon Apr 04 2016

Channel name for the chapter

• form
  • slugify name to channel name
  • validation
• API
• redux actions

first algorithm: randomly assign players not on an existing Project to a new Project

Data Storage

There will be an organization on GitHub (separate from Learners Guild) that holds craft-specific repositories.

• issues on these craft-specific repositories will be used to capture "Goals"
  • issue templates should be provided for these repositories
• every player in the game has the ability to create new Goals

Conditions for Voting to Be Complete

Either:

• everyone must have voted, ... and ...
• everyone must be placed on a team as either a member or a lead

Or:

• voting end-time is reached

User Experience and Interactions

Relevant Commands (within chat)

• /deactivate [player handle]
  • player handle only valid if command issued by someone with deactivatePlayer capability
  • otherwise, marks the player who is issuing the command as "not active" in the game
• /activate [player handle]
  • player handle only valid if command issued by someone with activatePlayer capability
  • otherwise, marks the player who is issuing the command as "active" in the game
• /vote GOAL_IDENTIFIER [GOAL_IDENTIFIER]
  • GOAL_IDENTIFIER is an issue-number or URL on the craft-specific goal-library repository
  • array of ranked-choices (support 2, primary and secondary, in first version)
  • first suggestion counts as a vote
  • if only a single goal is given to the command, that player is casting two votes for the same issue
  • later votes cast overwrite earlier votes for same user
  • run algorithm after each vote (or very frequently, so as to give feedback to flex-panel UI)

Voting Flex-Panel UI (read-only)

• includes link to goal library
• includes % of votes cast (for active players in chapter)
• display indication of whether or not voting is still open
• display current list of suggested projects, sorted by popularity (most popular at top)
• for each suggested project

  • of votes

  • special UI treatment (color, rank #) if given player has vote-ranked the project in question
• "nice-to-haves"
  • allow player to see who has voted on a particular project suggestion
  • show threshold line: any project below the line is non-viable
  • allow player to filter for "suggested by people within my skill range"

Related Issues

#2 #33