Below is our team principles document:
- Team members will mainly communicate using a private slack channel: #PYGUARD.
- The purpose of this channel will be to confirm meetings, handle assignment questions and remind people to complete tasks.
- It will be the responsibility of the person asking the question to tag the people they are asking specifically.
- General questions can be posed to the group at large.
- While not strictly necessary, it will be seen as good etiquette to acknowledge important questions and answers by using thumbs up/down reactions to these messages.
- We expect everyone to check the group at least once a day (Monday to Friday). If there is a reason you cannot check the group for longer than 1 day, you are expected to inform the team so we know not to expect a response.
- Emergencies: In case of emergency, we have the group's collected phone numbers pinned in a slack channel for texting and calling. This channel of communication is meant only for specific and rare cases.
- Our primary goal with these expectations for communications is to promote a positive, cohesive, blameless culture within our group.
We are all here to support each other. We are a TEAM! Not just a group.
- We will hold regular meetings for our team members, every Wednesday at 6pm.
- Members are responsible for attending the team meetings – if they are not able to make it, they must let the other attendees know as soon as possible.
- They must then make a plan to compensate for their absence. This could involve having someone present replace their role in the meeting or deliver an update on their behalf, and would also involves catching up on meeting contents to understand what new tasks they have.
- We are all there to support each other on the work involved for this course.
- We will try our best to delegate work evenly during our team meetings. This delegated work will be recorded on GitHub issues.
- If something comes up, or the work is proving to be more time consuming and difficult than anticipated, then members are expected to let the team know. They will be able to help out.
- Team members are expected to also complete work with a reasonable amount of time for the other members to review and discuss (can use pull requests and tags in issue comments to coordinate this). This means that last minute submissions of work are not ideal, since it is difficult to do this.
- Disagreements are expected and will be handled respectfully and professionally.
- Team members should first discuss differing viewpoints openly in the Slack channel or during meetings, focusing on ideas rather than individuals.
- We will prioritize decisions based on project requirements, evidence, and team consensus.
- If consensus cannot be reached, the team will vote or defer to the person most responsible for that area of work.
- Once a decision is made, all members are expected to support it and move forward constructively.
- Team members are expected to honour their commitments and deadlines.
- If someone misses a commitment, they should communicate the reason as soon as possible.
- The team will work together to adjust timelines or redistribute tasks when needed.
- Repeated missed commitments without communication will be addressed through a direct and respectful conversation to identify issues and agree on improvements.
- The goal of accountability is support and reliability, not blame.
- Feedback will be honest, respectful, and focused on improving the work rather than criticizing individuals.
- Constructive feedback should be specific, actionable, and given in a timely manner (e.g., via pull request comments or meetings).
- Team members are encouraged to ask for feedback early to avoid last-minute issues.
- Everyone is expected to be open to receiving feedback and to view it as part of learning and collaboration.
- We cannot foresee every kind of issue that might arise; however, the team is committed to coming up with a plan to overcome roadblocks of any kind through shared communication on how to handle the issue.