Performance for the three weeks in Sprint 3 is given in the two burndown charts below followed by the velocity report.
Sprint 3 covered the period for weeks 7, 8 and 9 of the course.
As you can see, I did no planning for week 7 at all. I fell off the wagon owing to a situation at work where two of my software engineers resigned at the end of October and beginning of November. Neither knew about the other, it was an unfortunate coincidence of timing.
Suddenly faced with the prospect of a major and mission critical development project about to land in my lap, the impending lack of staff to undertake the work and having to work off my phone for a few days because my laptop failed I was not in a good place. Add to this the second course game jam, the GitHub Game Jam and the new lockdown measures, the last few weeks have been a huge struggle with motivation and rising workload. I realise now I’d made myself a victim of circumstance; I was not managing myself, I was wallowing below the line and that’s never a good place to be.
I’m sure it is of no surprise to anyone that my velocity has also crashed through the floor too…
| Stop Doing | Keep Doing | Start Doing |
| Victim mode | Stick with the process | Planning |
| Over commiting | 90-day planning | More/better citations |
| Work through the night | Own the problem | |
| Wallow in the past | Look to the future | |
| Concurrent game jams | Take a break |
Out of the Abyss…
It’s now week 11 and as I write this retrospective I’m starting to come out the other side. I’m on leave this week as it’s my birthday. My phone is off. My email is off. The sun is shining once more. In a matter of hours we will be out of lockdown. I pushed through the week 8 reflection and know what I’ll be covering in my capstone video assignment. I can see a clear path ahead once more.
List of Images
Figure 1. THORN, 2020 Sprint 3 week 2 burn-down
Figure 2. THORN, 2020 Sprint 3 week 3 burn-down
Figure 3. THORN, 2020 Sprint 3 Velocity
References
Photo by David Travis on Unsplash
