Satellites
Welcome to this second edition of deploy(impact). This Wiki is here to guide you, remind the most important events and help you with the tools we are going to use during the program.
You can find all the important events in our TeamUp calendar. With the above link, you can access the calendar as a reader.
Here is the list of the major events we will have during the whole program.
- Don't forget to check the real calendar to not miss anything.
- Stay in touch with your team for all the Agile ceremonies you can attend
From an organizational point of view, women++ wants to ensure proper communication flow during deploy(impact). Team satellites are the main point of contact or bridge between the project teams and the women++ core team.
From a role's perspective, the satellite is part of the team in a supporting role by facilitating resources to tackle issues during the program.
As a satellite, you will accompany your assigned team from beginning to end, acquiring an understanding of the different key elements that go into the development of software solutions. Some of these include the different roles within a distributed agile team, the sprint retrospectives, the feedback sessions with the product owner, etc...
You are curious to learn more. You like finding solutions to any problem, without necessarily being the expert in the matter. You are a good communicator and find it easy to deliver key information to different parties. You thrive or wish to have the experience of being part of a dynamic project environment, where every sprint is different :) Communication is one of your strengths or you wish to put it into practice, by being the key link between your assigned team and the core deploy(impact) team.
As a supporting role to a deploy(impact)'s project team, you are welcome to attend all the different workshops held by industry leaders from the sponsoring companies on topics like project management, pitch, or design architecture, to name just a few.
As a team satellite, you are part of your assigned team, however, you do not have to solve the issues or develop the solution. You help spot early when a team needs support and help them get the right mentor/resource available. You are the elongated arm of the women++ organization, sharing information about your assigned team with the rest of women++ and vice versa. In addition, you are in close contact with each team's satellite, being able to share your experience and support each other with questions that participants might have.
You are the main link between the project team and deploy(impact)'s core team. Most important, you will be key in providing feedback to the teams after each sprint.
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During the program, you are assigned to one project team and will be responsible to review the team's retrospective exercise after every sprint.
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You will analyze the team's retrospective and provide a feedback report with further action points to solve issues during every sprint.
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As part of the feedback report, you will act as the mediator to ensure the issues (external and internal) are being solved. This includes suggesting the right person (women++ core team or mentors) follow through for issues that need external support to the team.
Satellite guidance: The satellite needs to guide participants, by making sure to spot issues that the team considers "possible to fix internally" but are repeated throughout more than two sprints. As a satellite, you can "challenge" your team's decision and suggest getting help from women++ or a mentor. And vice versa, teams could require external help for many things, especially at the beginning. Always consider trying and fixing any issues internally - if possible.
This year we are going TeamUp as a tool to manage the events or simply schedule meetings.
There are five different calendars:
- Mentors > Workshops: This calendar brings together all the collective workshops in which teams can participate.
- General events: Get Together, Opening and Closing Ceremony
- Mentors > Individual Sessions: This calendar will be used by mentors to create the necessary meetings to support the various teams.
- Participants > Learning Lunch: This timetable will be used by participants to schedule times for sharing knowledge with other participants. Preferably during the lunch break and lasting about 30 minutes.
- Wikimedia > Collective Sessions / Individual Sessions: Those are the calendars with all scheduled sessions with project owners or users.
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Teams will share on slack their retrospectives after each sprint. The deadline will be every Monday at 13:00.They can decide whether they have this as a team meeting with your guidance.
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Asking for external help: Teams should make visible any issues that require support from the women++ team (and can not be fixed by them internally as a team): if they need our help they will put a red sticky on the issue
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Satellite support: You will have 24hrs to review, create an action plan (what to solve internal + external - challenge the team if they are missing something), and assign the open issues to the responsible w++ member.
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Feedback / Action plan: The team's satellite will give this action plan as feedback to the team based on the team's anchors, reefs, and issues that require external attention. As part of the action plan, satellites will get in touch with the respective women++ member that can support. If the assigned w++ member (Chris & Giada for Technical and Product related questions | Luisa for Team questions) is not able to solve the issue, they will have to ask a mentor/PO to follow up with the team asap.
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Teams' actions to solve the issues must be taken asap (during the sprint!)
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Satellite guidance: You will guide participants, by making sure to spot issues that the team considers "possible to fix internally" but are repeated throughout more than 2 sprints. Then the satellite can "challenge" their decision and suggest getting help from women++ or a mentor. And vice versa, teams could require external help for many things, especially at the beginning. Consider suggesting they try and fix it internally - if possible.
We are going to use Slack as a communication tool
For communication between satellites and the core team, we opened a dedicated private slack channel to exchange information, questions, and comments.
To communicate with your assigned team, you will join the team's private slack channel. Stay up-to-date on any team meetings, share the feedback reports, and spot any potential issues that the teams might face.
Communication with mentors and product owners, we have created a general channel. Private messages are possible, to reach out to specific mentors when help is needed for their team.