Tasks and Team Work
Our team and the software department (backend devs of all things HQ) use Clickup to manage and track tasks. We have a form that other departments can fill out to submit bugs or feature requests. All these tasks can be found in the Web Support space. Inside Clickup, you will notice we have multiple spaces to projects in progress or migrations. For projects with deadlines, we use a sprints.
Tracking progress
In order for Phil to be able to report progress and time adjustments to other departments, it is important that we update the tasks we are working on accordingly. This involves changing the status as you work on the task, making comments when you hit blockers, or asking questions within the task.
We as the developers are responsible for keeping our tasks accurate and up-to-date. Either Phil or Ariel will assign out tasks and occasionally check in. This allows for some flexibility in how you manage your tasks in Clickup. Perhaps you are working on a task that is larger than expected and so you divide into multiple subtasks, like a home page redesign. Feel free to use an approach that works best for you.
Daily Scrum
As a team we meet each morning to discuss what we did the previous day, what we are planning on working on for the current day, and any blockers or questions we might have. We also may do a team training at this time to chat about a new feature/technology or do a quick skills refresher.
Scrum is a professional way to play it by ear.
— Mike Beedle
Pair-programming
Due to our smaller team size, we usually reserve pair-programming for training purposes. In the first few months of employment, expect to pair program for several hours each week. The software department at Malouf ONLY pair programs as they feel it shares the most knowledge across developers as well as contributes to cleaner code. They also have over 20 developers 🤷
Even though we do not rely on pair-programming, anyone on the team is happy to answer questions and do “on the spot” programming to help with issues.
Discord & Microsoft Teams
We use Discord as a team because we can set up site alerts and other bots to notify us if services go down. The rest of the company can be reached via Teams. Due to this, we expect a developer to have both Teams and Discord on during work hours (8am - 5pm) to not miss important messages or alerts.
Team Building
Each month we like to do a small team building event like watching a movie. We usually send out a survey beforehand to gauge interest and availability. We try to do these during work hours to avoid “forced fun” activites. Of course, if you would rather sit out, you are more than welcome. No team activity is required. We cannot speak, however, on the Malouf sponsored events and monthly meetings…