Operation Squeaky Clean-Demo and Retro (By Samantha)

I am pleased to report that although I haven’t had the time to write about it, but Zooey’s room is clean and finished. I ran into some extra work that needed to be done (moving her bedroom around), so I had to move some of the work into another Sprint. I also had one impediment, which was washing and obtaining bedding for her room. I was successful in finishing the product, but as always, the impediments and additional work do happen.

In order to mitigate my impediments and obstacles, I organized my tasks in order of priority. So, obtaining the bedding took precedence over moving on to the next task, once that was finished, I was able to finish everything else. To be honest, when I was more realistic with the Asks for this, I was able to organize my time in order to finish my daughter’s room before she got back from vacation.

As for the demo, I had decided to have my daughter be involved. I showed her my finished product, her room, and the only issue that she had with it was that I had moved her Hockey memorabilia to a shelf, and she preferred to have it in the drawer. I almost did not hear the end of it! While we were going through her room, I simply put the items back in the drawer and all was good in Zooey land.

For the Sprint Retrospective, it was quite simple. What went right? Well, what went right was that the furniture moved well, and that I was able to finish her room with little difficulty. Also, I was able to remain Agile during the entire process, and stay completely organized. While we are not in a professional environment here, I still remained in Agile, although I only had a Product Owner (Zooey) to answer to. What went wrong? My estimation of the time it would take to clean a 7 year old’s room. I had underestimated Zooey’s ability to stash and store tiny toys in every little nook and cranny she had. I had also underestimated the amount of scrap paper she used to draw and write on. Also, it ended up taking more time because my Ask was increased. What needs to change? That’s easy! Zooey will be cleaning her own room from now on.