Little Kidogo Sprint Retro Report #4
Our 15th Sprint Retro and Planning session of 2019 💾
This past week we had one major project that the whole team had to work on — update the Little Kidogo business model. We had consulting work we had to continue with, as well as marketing, blogging and admin, the infinite ones.
Having met up, revisited our older models and strategized possible new routes to take, we now have a list of next actions with which we are continuing the updating of the LK business model.
Having planning and reviewing routines scheduled has helped us see what the next actions will be for the projects that we are currently focused on.
We also noticed that the extra time we have started putting into our daily and weekly routines to prepare and review tasks that still need to be done, or have already been done, has really helped a lot with regards to sticking to the sprint outcome we initially planned.
Marketing wise we have managed to put together a good social media campaign template, all the while posting and sharing blogs here on our Medium profile as well as on our Instagram profile.
⬇️ We published the 1st blog in our Non-Violent Communication Series
Overall we feel like we spent our time well this week. We are happy to be able to put in the effort to be more responsible with our time as well as take care of all the contexts in our lives, including our relationship, upgrading our skillsets and business.
As the days go by our sense of being capable and of increasing our capacity to do more is improving, and this is making our hearts shine💖.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Carla Inez Espost for being patient and still trying. And in turn thanks to MountainGoat for taking the time to guide us through making the business model & “for taking my feelings into account and listening”.
What did we do well?
- We collaborated and communicated well, we were patient & consciously empathic
- We tried to keep time well, focusing on the tasks that we were doing
- We managed to do deeper work than usual
- We focused on finishing a project rather than working on many projects and not finishing
- We broke down the work and scheduled it ensuring task cards and agendas were actionable and clearly defined
- We wrote the first blog in the LK Business Blogs series
- Carla Inez Espost wrote and posted her 1st personal sprint review blog & 2nd Game Design case study blog
- We made our first social media campaign template
- We analyzed our business model proposals and managed to work deeply on a plan
- We enhanced Kachuma, our Discord bot 👾 to be able to handle many servers as well as identified some ways of making her better
What can we do better?
- We can plan better, be more detailed, finish more
- We should make it a habit to take a project and focusing on it
- We should prioritize work
- We should break down priorities into projects that are feasible and only then should we work on a project
- We should ensure we finish projects when we are working on them
What should we stop doing?
- Focusing on anything other than today
- Looking at what we don’t have
- Looking at what we haven’t done
- Focusing on what’s wrong, we should move on faster
- Abstracting details — making general plans without checking and ensuring that the details are actionable
What should we start doing?
- Be detailed
- Focus on what we have right now
- Making the next steps based on where we are now more realistically, more practically
- Praising our achievements no matter how small
- Making sure we finish versions of projects so that we can keep our mental states as we want them
Next Actions:
- Prepare ‘How Might We’ notes based on the reports we made on our precious Problem Solution Fit interviews
- Do research on versions and milestones
- Ensure Kachuma can do StandUps and StandDowns in the real world
- Get better at managing our time by finishing work faster
- Test our Social Media Campaign template
- Use Kachuma and list bugs & features
- Meet to discuss the weekly report feature for Kachuma V 0.0.2 🐘🤖(Coming soon)
What we’ve learned is that —
Being positive and grateful helps things come together more surely, as well as helping us get better at communicating and collaborating! And so does staying calm, focused and patient — which we learn and practice in our personal meditation.
To have a plan is one thing but to stick to it is another thing completely. Make sure to focus, be aware of the time, make a plan and stick to it.
In terms of project management, having a weekly schedule and themes for the days have been helping us stay focused on finishing projects more thorough. Reviewing work often enough has also helped us make sure to not let anything fall between the cracks. For this to work out we make sure to record and review our standups, making sure to use the lessons from previous trials as foundations for improvements.
One big lesson that has been coming a long time and that we finally decided to list here is that we need to stick to the times we give things more diligently 🕰️— otherwise it all compounds and we feel unsuccessful, and at the end of the day it messes with the team’s momentum big time.
Summary of the past sprint’s lessons
- Keep noting improvements, reviewing our work regularly and making enough time to retrospect on the actions we have taken as frequently as possible (and scheduled).
- Keep going, stay calm and keep working on the plans, strategies schedules we make
- Be careful of not holding on to the past too strongly — it easily becomes a hinderance.
- Learn to accept yourself, your team, your business, your work as what it is today, it is enough and in the face of the challenge it is beautiful
- Work with what you have and from where you are
At that our dear readers is Mission Accomplished🎖️
What did you do well in your past sprint?
Let us know in the comments below 🦄
