# IPFS Documentation & Developer UX WG: Q4 2019 Retrospective

## Instructions
Please add your notes async to this document. **The core team will also discuss in a sync meeting [17 December at 1600 UTC](https://protocol.zoom.us/j/3070817925).**
- If you'd like to attach your name to a comment for further discussion, please do so in brackets afterwards, like this [Jessica]
- If someone already added your note, please copy-paste a plus-one emoji at the end, like this 1️⃣

## Part 1: Review Q4 OKRs and overall progress

### Thoughts on what OKRs we achieved vs postponed items, etc?
- We did extremely well overall, despite the IPFS hosting discussion and resulting decisions taking longer and ending up differently than we'd hoped
- Postponed items were ones we'd included as super-stretch goals anyway, so no regrets there
- Would have been a nice chronological milestone to ship on IPFS by end of year, but not worth asking for heroics, particularly over the holidays

### What debt are we carrying over into Q1 that needs to be settled?
- IPFS-hosted launch of docs site (by mid-Jan) 1️⃣
- Comms plan activities (particularly monitoring) associated with that launch

## Part 2: Standard retro stuff

### What went well?
- Amazing team coherence and flexibility 1️⃣
- Ability to gel on controversial topics
- Good balance of sync/async methodologies
- Tight work in a cramped quarter
- Lockstep connections between OKRs and issues
- Johnny had an excellent on-boarding
- And we had a Lord Johnny (technically) to on-board!

### What didn't go well?
- We could have done a better job of anticipating hosting controversy, and potentially its likely outcome; did it make sense to try to "win" that debate? 1️⃣
- We didn't always realize when it would be helpful to bring in long-term labbers from elsewhere in the org to lend history, experience and even clout to difficult discussions (see below)
- Some management trickle-down led to really poor morale among everyone :(
- OKR ambitions vs real available time given lab week, holidays and other asks across the org.
- Keep in mind that working async requires a HUGE documentation/notetaking overhead ... maybe we just assume an extra 30% work!

## What got blocked? Why?
- IPFS hosting, for reasons mentioned above
- In-person November team meeting ended up being a big time suck

## What should we change/improve for next quarter?
- Keep focusing on setting realistic, achievable goals, particularly in light of potential team makeup changes
- Encourage/pressure higher-ups to make big decisions (hosting on IPFS for example), in cases where we're not allowed to make them ourselves.
- Not just higher-ups. People on adjacent teams also have more power/respect/influence than we do, and let's remember to work with, consult and leverage them
- Establish more visceral connections to users ... except we don't have the people to support this ... it can't be done in someone's "extra" time :(
- But we can still try to keep this in mind as we go
- And hopefully as we hire a community person, we can get more involved with their work
- More focus on content creation (+ integrating visuals in it) - both docs and ProtoSchool
- Use shipped@ to publicize our work
- Explicitly connect our persona work to site development

## What support from PL would have helped?
- Ability to get quick feedback from those in power (this wasn't always possible due to war mode and similar)
- Understanding our limitations/powers as a team without having express permission from management
- Our own budget for one-off tasks (freelance writing, dev tasks, etc etc)