Sprint rules

Viz Sprint Rules of Engagement

How to communicate effectively with team members during a viz sprint

1. Create a GitHub issue for the task you are working on and assign it to yourself. This helps scrummasters and teammates understand the tasks that are underway and those that still need to be done. Always create an issue for things people have discussed in Slack, even if you can’t take it on. The GitHub issues can be used as a sort of “backlog” where other teammates can go when they finish another task.

2. Branch branch branch. Always branch your work so that we are merging a pull request for one feature/improvement at a time.

3. PR often and assign someone to review. Don’t let your pull request get too big - aim for short and functioning so that others can quickly review and merge. Also, assign someone to review. Don’t assume people will just automatically review then merge because it’s up there. Call that person out in Slack so they are not relying on an email notification.

4. Attach screenshots of changes from your PR. This makes reviews go faster so that the reviewer is not needing to pull everything down and run a potentially long “make”.

5. Stick to the style guide. Styles should not be mixed within a single visualization. Here is our guide.

6. Comment all of your code. Never underestimate the power of comments, especially when others need to quickly understand and modify your code (i.e., in a viz sprint).