[BuildStream] BuildStream Gathering 2018: evaluation

[Agustín Benito Bethencourt <agustin benito codethink co uk>]

Hi,

the below mail, together with my personal evaluation as organizer, has been added to the gathering folder of 
the communication repo, in nosoftware[1]

## BuildStream Gathering 2018: evaluation

Evaluation of the BuildStream Gathering 2018 that took place from Tuesday to Friday on week 42 (October) at 
Codethink offices, in Manchester, UK.

The survey was created by Agustin and reviewed by Laurence using GDoc. In order to keep anonymity, the raw 
data will not be disclosed. It would be obvious to identify several people.

This evaluation has been done by Agustin, reflecting all/most relevant feedback. 

There was a mistake in one of the Logistics questions. The answer scale lacked a value "4". It was corrected 
after several people already filled out the survey. It had little impact on the result though.

### Survey summary

## General feedback

* Participation: 
   * 12 people filled out the form.
   * 3 participants on the training sessions answered the survey.
   * Agustin B.B., as organizer, did not complete the survey.

The following data refers to a scale from 1 to 5 where 1 is the minimum value.

* How satisfied were you with the event in general?
   * Avg(*): 3.5
   * Median: 4
   * Std Dev(**): 1.38

#### Logistics
* [Location]
   * Avg: 4.18
   * Median: 5
   * Std Dev: 1.08
* [Room / venue]
   * Avg: 3.67
   * Median: 4
   * Std Dev: 1.37
* [Information prior to the event]
   * Avg: 3.09
   * Median: 3
   * Std Dev: 1.22
* [Restaurant / food / beverages]
   * Avg: 4.38
   * Median: 5
   * Std Dev: 1.19
* [Participation]
   * Avg: 3.82
   * Median: 4
   * Std Dev: 1.08
* [Moderation]
   * Avg: 3.2
   * Median: 3
   * Std Dev: 1.55

Additional comments:
* There are several people unhappy with the schedule changes or the fact that in some cases the Gathering 
started a few minutes ahead of schedule in the morning.
* There are a couple of comments about organising the event out of Codethink offices, in Manchester or 
London, or organise parallel tracks for a variety of reasons like the room being small for the number of 
people present, the impact of the Gathering on those people working at Codethink's office or for convenience.
* There is one explicit comment reflecting satisfaction. 

#### Agenda

* What is your overall evaluation of the agenda?
   * Avg: 2.92
   * Median: 3
   * Std Dev: 1.16

* Name the most relevant topics or sessions (3 choices):
   * Testing (5)
   * Docker / OCI (3)
   * BuildStream 1.4 features list (plan) and schedule (3)
   * BuildStream Architecture (3)
   * Hacking sessions (2)
   * SourceCache (2)
   * Workspaces (2)
   * Several others got one mention.

Additional comments:
* Three mentions/complains about some agenda topics starting earlier that schedule in the morning or changed 
against plan which led to some people missing them.
* There is a suggestion on having the agenda set up earlier.
* There is a positive mention on having the agenda before hand and people had a chance to participate on it.  


#### Training sessions

* BuildStream 101
   * Avg: 4
   * Median: 4
   * Std Dev: 0

Comments:
* A suggestion to improve the slides on the CLI commands to run.
* A positive comment about the session.

* BuildStream 102
   * Avg: 3.67
   * Median: 4
   * Std Dev: 0.58

Comments:
* Suggestion of having the training sessions earlier in the day.

#### Outcome

* Please describe which outcome would you highlight out of this Gathering.
   * Personal interaction (expressed in different ways): (3)
   * Agreed 1.4 feature plan list and release schedule (2)
   * Architecture (2)
   * Mission statement (2)
   * Testing
   * Disruptions to others at the office.
   * Any of the output had much benefit

Additional comments and suggestions:
* Stick to the agenda
* Hold the event elsewhere
* Have a backlog of short discussion topics in case a session or the agenda scheduling finishes earlier, so 
we stick to the plan. 
* Starting at 9 on Tuesday was not helpful.
* Introducing the hacking sessions was good.
* A good event overall.
* Productive event.

(*) Avg expressed as arithmetic mean: 
http://www.differencebetween.net/science/difference-between-average-and-mean/
(**) Std Dev: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation

[1] 
https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/nosoftware/communication/blob/master/gatherings/BuildStream_Gathering_2018_evaluation.md

Best Regards
-- 
Agustín Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant
Codethink Ltd
We respect your privacy.   See https://www.codethink.co.uk/privacy.html