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Retrospective

sheila-npg edited this page Jul 12, 2012 · 4 revisions

BarCamp Berkshire Retrospective

What went well, what didn't and notes for next time.

Travel

WIN

  • a crew member wearing a BarCamp t-shirt to greet/guide attendees at the station
  • bus from the station to the venue

FAIL

  • Having to travel further
  • Bus driver didn't park near the station exit

Venue

WIN

  • catering
  • Security guards
  • Canteen separate to main area
    • Didn't have to set-up/take-down the eating area
  • Coloured rooms a really good size
  • Photos of venue taken before we moved things around (for reference when putting things back)
  • Different coloured lanyards for staff working on-site while event running
  • Lots of natural light
  • No crush on the stairs because rooms upstairs were upstairs
  • Small kitchens

FAIL

  • Queuing for food
    • Should have had seperate queues for different stations
    • Too many rooms
    • scheduling issue
  • AV was inconsistent
  • Attendees weren't prepared for connecting to av
  • Network diagrams were found in a photocopying area on sunday; there all weekend?
  • Big screen in the Atrium; should have been in a separate room for F1 etc

Presentations

WIN

  • Lots of them on saturday
  • Crew member/s actively encouraging attendees to commit to a session
  • Co-presentations between experienced BarCampers/crew and newbies/hesitant attendees
  • Attendees were encouraged to commit to a presentation before they'd even reached the venue!

FAIL

  • Not enough on Sunday

Food & Drink

WIN

  • Food handled by non-crew
    • crew could go to sessions more easily
    • Kevin was less stressed
    • didin't have to rush people for fear of food going cold; pleasanter for everyone
  • Ticket system for queuing
    • less time standing in queue
  • Variety of food
  • Lots of fruit
    • in small containers scattered around
  • Healthy snacks (granola bars, raisins, fruit)
  • Small packets of biscuits, rather than loose
  • Water bottles
    • people drank lots of juice and water
    • Water bottles bigger than in the past; needed refilling less frequently
  • Squash/juice
  • Easy access to kitchens/drinking stations
  • Greater varity of beers
  • Pimms
  • Midnight snacks
    • Attendees able to indicate a preference
    • Variety
    • Fast food?

FAIL

  • Not enough tea and coffee
  • confused as to whether we could use hot drinks machines
  • not enough spoons
  • scrappy/messy tea stations
  • Chips with everything
  • Sat night dinner a bit disapointing
  • Forgot the crisps
  • People weren't sure which cans they could take (because they were in canteen fridges)
  • Unable to easily label the bottles with owner's name
  • Too great a proportion of soft drinks were sugary
  • The beer was warm

Sleepover

WIN

  • Multiple small areas to sleep
  • Badges hung on doors where people were sleeping
  • Showers for all in the morning

FAIL

  • Sleeping areas weren't clearly marked
    • lights were on permanently in the area planned for crew use
    • people were sleeping everywhere
  • We didn't make a note of where the first-aiders were sleeping

Technology

WIN

  • Were able to fallback to paper reg
  • Were lucky to still be able to access the attendee lists
  • Paper grid worked well
  • Pre-filled grid (blank cards)

FAIL

  • Internet was filtered
    • man in the middles secure sites
    • site blocking (though not effectively)
  • Wifi sign-in
    • people who signed in a mobile and then on a computer were greeted by name on the second device just
    • We didn't have enough cards for the grid when we started
  • Wifi patchy in rooms coloured rooms
  • Retain didn't work
    • Weren't proprly prepared to fallback to paper
    • Forgot about checking overnight numbers (until early morning)
  • Didn't phone the parents of all under 18s
  • Policy not clear on under 18s
  • Digital grid
    • Didn't work all the time
    • Wasn't consistently synchronised with the paper grid
    • Many people didn't know that the digital grid existed
    • No code cut-off pre-event
    • No thorough testing
  • Weren't properly set-up in advance for printing badges and signs
    • Attendees had to wait
    • Looked bad/unprepared
  • The clock near the grid wasn't visible enough

Comms

WIN

  • We had radios
    • Made it easier to communicate across a large building
      • Less running around
      • People in remote locations (printing, registration) felt less isolated
      • People in remote locations were easy to contact with requests/queries
    • The apprentices showed discipline on the radios
  • More people pre-checked the emails

FAIL

  • We didn't use the radios responsibly
    • There was too much chatter on the radios
    • We set a bad example to the apprentices!
    • We reinforced a perception of the crew as being an exclusive clique
  • Too many people had radios (?)
  • Night-time radio channel arrangements weren't consistently/comprehensively communicated to all crew
  • The closing talk didn't have anything in it that focused on the attendees
    • How was it for them?
  • Not enough people pre-checked the emails
    • There was confusion about what needed to be checked, when
  • Patchy communication of plans/decisions to crew
  • No plans in place for monitoring social media chanels during the event

Crew

WIN

  • We work well together as a team
    • We have experience of working together in the past
  • Included host employees
    • The staff who were crew really got stuck in

FAIL

  • We get on so well together that it can be intimidating to people who don't know us
  • We were complacent about some things
    • The crew briefing didn't properly cover emergency procedures
    • There was no walk-around the night before
    • No pre-event team-building/meet-up

Pre-planning

WIN

  • Kevin was able to incorporate this into his day job!
  • Mel assigning and monitoring work during set-up

FAIL

  • No cover for an unanticipated absence
    • More of the planning had to be done by Kevin
  • The remoteness of the venue meant that it was harder to organise pre-event meetings on-site
    • The crew didn't have a chance to get familiar with the building beforehand
  • Current work stack doesn't make it easy enough to involve more people in the planning
  • We didn't get all the signs up before the attendees arrived
  • The set-up task board wasn't local enough to where the bulk of the work was going on
  • The final scheduled was decided at the last moment
    • Different to the schedule on the website
    • Poor familiarity with the new schedule caused some confusion
      • The last session was almost accidentaly cut short halfway through

Miscellaneous

WIN

  • Crew had security passes
  • Good verbal feedback from helen
  • Crew stopped a few staff who didn't have passes (demonstrating alertness to intruders)
  • More children in attendance
  • Lots of people got to experience the O2 building

FAIL

  • O2 could have made more use of the opportunity to showcase their company
  • Rude and uncooperative behaviour from an attendee prior to Saturday dinner
  • The final session was almost cut short by accident

Next Time

  • We need a thorough facilities checklist/audit
  • Pre-identify sleeping areas
  • Bacon and egg sandwiches, cereal, fruit and yoghurt for breakfast
  • Group food in the pantry according to when it's going to go out
  • Less candy (lots left over)
  • DON'T USE ICE TO COOL DRINKS, hire fridges if necessary
  • Encourage people to document sessions on lanyrd
  • Identify the what we need in order to set up our own mini network for printing, retain, etc. So not dependent on local equipment/sign
  • Assign radios to fixed locations (printing, registration, help desk, etc.), a few runners and the core GOL team
  • Better radio discipline
  • Have a channel for night-time that can be used to raise crew from sleep if necessary
  • Dedicated machines for monitoring social media channels during the events; on helpdesk (?)
  • Ensure that the closing talk includes content on the conference; how did it go? did attendees enjoy it? learn anything?
  • Sort through the left-overs immediately after lunch on Sunday (so that there's no risk of it delaying the closing talk)
  • Repeat as much of the WIN as possible