The last several Deathstar social chats, no one has attended but myself. A few more times previous to that it’s been 2 people at most.
The current scheduling was set because we used to have synchronous meetings, and so the social chat could be right after. At that time, attendance was at its maximum, with almost everyone attending.
Now, however, since there is no synchronous meeting, the time is inconvenient for just about everyone since it’s right at the end of the sprint when we’re tired and wrapping up all the loose ends.
So, I’d like to ask what a better time would be, or if we should instead pick the most convenient social chat we’d like to attend held by other cells. I am, of course, making the assumption that the social chat is still a desirable activity-- I certainly enjoy it. However if you think it’s wasteful or should be rethought entirely, that would also be good to know and discuss.
At the moment I’m personally leaning toward ‘let’s attend the social chats of the other cells.’ It seems like it fosters comradery with the devs and we’re all over the place, timezone-wise. Let me know your thoughts, though!
Thanks for bringing this up. Our social chat falls outside of my work hours, which is why I don’t attend (it’s normally slap bang in the middle of dinnertime for me).
I think this approach makes sense. My location tends to change every 6 or so months, so it would be good to have the flexibility to attend whichever social chat best suits my current timezone.
I think attending the other cells’ social chats makes sense too, but our cells’ social chats are basically all at the same time of day, and (from my timezone’s perspective) are too difficult to attend:
What if we scheduled 2 social chats for everyone, one in the (UTC) AM and one PM? I’m happy to organize a UTC AM one.
We Bebop folks have taken over and have been attending “Serenity social chat” for some time now, since that time slot seems to work out for most timezones and it also gives us a chance to catchup with Serenity folks.
You are all welcome to join the Serenity chat too, or as @jill suggested, creating two chats times works as well.
I personally never liked the idea of cell wise chat sessions and would vote for common chat sessions for whole team.
I was going to suggest this too! I think it lets the team as a whole get to know each other. A lot of the time I only interact with certain people at our conference.
I think a common chat is a great idea. I don’t see the point in cell-specific chats since OpenCraft should have at least some level of interaction across cells. Having two social chats such that they give best coverage is probably the best approach.
I regularly want to attend but find the timings just a little out of my comfort zone. Hopefully the new timings will suit better.
I’ve scheduled a recurring event to the OpenCraft calendar for the 1st Tuesday of the sprint at 0630 UTC. Please invite yourselves: event link.
I chose a time that works well for me, but if it’s bad for others in the eastern hemisphere, let me know? (Or if turnout is low for the first meeting on 12 Nov, I’ll poll people.)
I figured we would just rename the existing Serenity social chat since it’s already good for a lot of people. However, if it would be good to kick it a bit later to even out the distribution, we could do that.
OK-- I’ve renamed the Serenity Social chat as Social Chat (PM) (cc @gabor@mtyaka, who I realize now we haven’t heard from here, but would be affected since we’re rechristening their cell’s chat! Let me know if you’d prefer we not do this.)
Interestingly, though, it’s now about an hour earlier than I’m normally available–seems that happened after Daylight savings time this last weekend. I think I could probably attend some of the time.
@pooja , as Sprint Manager for Bebop, would you be willing to remove the Bebop social chat in favor of the new AM/PM split?
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