lbain
commented
10 years ago Thanks for writing that up!
1. Yes, I think putting the laptops away would be really helpful. I also saw how useful the board was for @puyo, so it'd be good to look into getting those for everyone (sorry @tjmcewan and @joshuapaling I didn't think of it beforehand!). I'd like to add a timer-ish thing for the ppt slides to give the girls a 5 min warning, 3min, 2, 1, maybe with a colour change or something obvious. I know a lot of your "10 min" retros really were only 4-5min once you'd gathered the girls.
2. I don't think it'd be too hard for the mentors to do all 3 courses. They're full time devs ;) It might be worth having a pre-event drinks and workshops night so they have official time to work through all the exercises and can do so as a group. It'd also be a time to discuss how the mini-retros should go.
And an afterthought on points 1 / 2: Yes, I really think a formal intro would have been helpful. You guys certainly did a more official walk through of your exercises on the second run. One of the problems we run into is time. A few of the girls were keen to keep going, but for many the amount of focus and concentration was a bit overwhelming. If we did a formal intro we'd have to make sure to keep it short.
I'm curious about the smaller retro groups you suggested. My hope with the mini-retros after each exercise was that it would give the girls time to realise that everyone was struggling, it wasn't just them, but that they, in fact, learned something from the exercise. I thought being in a bigger group would help with that, but perhaps it was too intimidating to speak up? Perhaps the intent wasn't clear? I think the mini-retros had value, but they're certainly something I want to think about more and change up for the next go. They could have been better.
3. I think having a "continuing" time would be good, but I do worry about mental stamina. We're demanding a lot from the girls and I don't want them to end the day being warn out and so making lots of errors and getting frustrated. I want them to stop just before then. Since we can't gauge it I'd rather error on the side of too little than too much. But perhaps doing just 2 exercises and then free-form? or doing two exercises officially, making the third available, but allowing them to choose?
4. Yes, minitest caused a few hiccups (but nothing show stopping). Now we know their computers don't come with it installed (or at least, not rolled with ruby) we can have a setup page to work through in the morning. There was plenty of time for that while they were checking in and before the welcome. Just need to write it up ;)
5. I'm not a huge fan of the screencast idea on the day. There'd be a massive problem with the internet if everyone was trying to stream and also the sound issue. But perhaps releasing a solution video after the fact? I think the girls could gain from seeing a walk through of how it could be done, but I'd hate to leave them with "this is how the pros do it" and make them feel bad about their code.
Yeah, mentor screencast could work. I'd rather have a pre-event workshop, but I know a lot of people (including myself) haven't been able to make those in the past. So maybe making the screencast available to those who couldn't make it.
6. Yours was certainly ended up being the hardest, and for the girls who started there I think it was a bit discouraging. I'm not sure if the best thing to do is to break it up into tiny steps, give more explicit hints on each step, or pick another (easier) exercise. We could still make the full ATM problem available for girls who have done RGN before or are really looking for a challenge.
7. Yes, I'm going to send out an email today with links to all those things.
8. I'd like to stick with the name Rails Girls Next. I think if we do another one of these we could still have girls who have just finished Rails Girls and girls who have finished Rails Girls Next come back and do the same/similar exercises. I really want the girls to feel like they know something, so coming back and not being the worst in the room would be a huge boost. It'd also show the girls who've just done Rails Girls that they'll learn something today, and that if their partner could do it, they can too. I don't want to end up with Rails Girls 27 and have everyone split out. At that point they could be a mentor, and should be doing their own projects and things.
9. Our custom domain will be railsgirls.com ;) we're supposed to push this stuff back up stream for other groups to use as well. We were a trial run, but I know other groups are keen for something similar (I've already gotten an email from RG Wellington asking what we did and they want to do their own one too). It was unfortunate that our guides weren't up on RG for the girls to use, but I knew we were going to do a fair amount of updating before and after the event so I didn't think it was worth flooding them with pull requests. Once we've sorted what we think would be a better version I'll push it up to them for others to use.
10. Feedback
joshuapaling
puyo
Hi All,
Today was awesome, stoked to be part of it. Here's a couple of the main points I took out of todays retro, and teaching my course in general:
1. Have a 'mandatory', laptops-closed, stand-up retro is after each exercise. With white board / butchers paper / etc handy for each group if possible.
2. People would prefer to do it in this order: a) TDD b) Sinatra c) Ruby ATM (which means everyone is on the same thing, and mentors have to cover 3 courses, not one)
And an afterthought on points 1 / 2: If we did that, it could be worth having a short but more formal intro to each exercise, with slides, presented to the entire group. And then the retro could be done in small groups - possibly engaging other mentors who didn't write the courses to run retros so the groups can be smaller still - 4 or 5 ppl per mentor.
3. Someone suggested having a 4th (optional) session, which is 'continue working on your choice of any of the exercises'.
4. Several people had trouble getting minitest to work - so could be worth having a page with some info / workarounds for that.
5. I mentioned the idea of doing a short screencast to help people understand the basic workflow of an exercise. Tim rightly pointed out that sound won't work well in a crowded environment.
However, a screencast designed for mentors could be worth while. Most mentors didn't really try out the exercises before coming (understandably), but I think they'd watch a 5 or 10 min screencast going over the main points and main things past people have had trouble with, especially if they're going to lead a small group retro.
6. Lastly, don't know about other courses, but it was confusing that even a single step of my course spanned multiple browser heights. So, I want to break mine up into an overview page, that links out to eg. separate pages for hints and tests for that step.
7. OK, really lastly, could be worth having a page for 'after rails girls next' with info on Dev Hub, Rails Girls Next 2 (in future), Keep in touch - "follow us on twitter", etc.
I've also got some notes on improvements for my own course, which I'll submit soon, too.
Congratulations if you've made it this far without falling asleep!
PS - a custom domain like railsgirlsnext.com.au or something will probably increase the chances of people checking it out again when they get home. Or a handout with the current domain name.