I made alot of mistakes

The title is from the Surjan Stevens song Chicago, if you haven't heard it before I would recommend it.

This sprint I decided that I needed to get a ton of things done because I was behind. I would not be slowed down by things like history or logic... Claudia even warned me that too much of the work was for me, but I still thought I could power through it. Funny thing is, the time-space continuum did not expand for me. Instead of being only a few hours behind with 4 days left to go, we are over 25 hours behind. Indeed, I made a lot of mistakes.

First, the planning meeting was over Skype and using Agilo software. This was the first time and things were unfamiliar. I got a little frazzled looking for things. To save time, we broke out the tasks for our own stories separately - tasks were even less everybody. Also estimating time was almost independent. Lesson = always know your meeting software.

The rest of the mistakes were technical or stubborn. Equally problematic, but easier to avoid and less interesting to discuss...

There is no everybody in task

As far as I can tell, one of the basic tenants of agile work is that tasks should be time-boxed, complete (clear goal to finish), understandable, and everybody can do them. The first three requirements are already no picnic but we are learning. The 4th one is proving to be a bear.

The tasks are very obviously either for me or for Claudia. This makes the burn-down of limited use. If she sees that I am behind she usually cannot help and vice versa. It is partially due to our unique (sometimes non-overlapping) skill sets and partially due to geographic location (access to equipment).

I am not sure what adjustments to make here...

Proof of Concept

Ok, after a retrospective meeting and a meeting with the boss - I am ready to chalk up Sprint 1 to proof of concept. Not necessarily proof that the concept works perfectly, but it is on the right track. The good news is that he is willing to get more involved and provide the necessary insight as product owner. Bad news is that a combination of factors (illness, travel, national holidays) put a 2 week (one full sprint length) gap between our finale/retrospective meeting and today's planning meeting. Hopefully in all that time we subconsciously learned something and can plan better now. Meeting in T-53 minutes...