Python Enrichment and PitP

When I was starting my job at CCP, I posted about some things I wanted to do as a lead. I’ve been through two releases with the Tech Art Group in Iceland (and for the past 6 months or so been the Tech Art Director here) and figured I’d measure my performance against my expectations.

Training sessions: I’m proud to say this is a definite success. I was the initial Coordinator for our Reykjavik Python Community of Practice (studio-wide volunteer group that discusses python in general and its use at CCP), where I started two initiatives I’m very proud of. One is the weekly ‘enrichment session’ where we watch a PyCon video, go through a demonstration or tutorial, etc. These have gone over great, the trick is to do them even if only 4 people show up :) The other is Python in the Pisser, a python version of Google’s Testing in the Toilet. I hope we can open source the newsletters and maybe share content with the outside world. More information on that coming in the future.

Collective vision/tasking: We run an XP-style team on tech art so I like to think my TAs feel ownership of what they are working on. In reality, that ownership and vision increases with seniority. We are actively improving this by doing more pairing and having more code reviews- the team is at a level now where they can review each other’s work and it isn’t all up to me to mentor/train them.

Evolving standards and practices: We started in Hansoft, moved to Outlook Tasks, and settled on Trello. We’ve discovered our own comfortable conventions and can discuss and evolve them without getting into arguments or ‘pulling rank’.

Community engagement: The CoP and mentoring has definitely done some work here. I try and give everyone 10%/10% time, where 10% is for ‘mandatory’ training or non-sprint tasks, and 10% is for their personal enrichment.

Move people around: We haven’t had much of an opportunity for this but we did change desk positions recently :) The art team is too small to have many opportunities and all graphics development is on one scrum team.

Code katas: We had one and it was mildly successful. We plan to do more but scheduling has been difficult- we do two releases a year, and DUST introduces complications in the middle of those releases, but we’ll be doing more things like it for sure.

I’ve also been doing very regular 1-on-1’s and, I hope, been getting honest feedback. Overall I am happy with my performance but can improve in all areas, even if that means doing more of the same (and becoming a better XP team).

Anyone want to share what successful cultural practices they have on their team/at their studio?