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Expectations of team members

This guide documents the expectations we have of those who work on the GOV.UK Design System team.

Core hours

Core hours are 10am-4pm. Please try to avoid arranging meetings outside of those times and over the lunch period.

Leave

You should ask Kelly if you wish to take leave. If Kelly is not here, then Izabela or Kam. Please do not seek approval for leave from the team on shared Slack channels. Delivery managers are responsible for team capacity and how that impacts delivery, so it’s their decision as to whether leave can be taken.

Also, please book leave as far in advance as possible. The team leads need this information when planning cycles of work.

You must add all of your leave to the team leave calendar. It’s the team’s single source of truth when it comes to knowing who is here, and who isn’t at any given time.

Sickness

You should let the team know before 10am if you are unwell and not working that day. You can do this via the team channel on Slack. You should also let your line manager know.

You should be in contact with the team and your line manager every day during your sickness. You should not declare a period of sickness ahead of time.

If you have been signed off by a doctor, or have a hospital stay, the above expectations do not apply.

Non-team work

You are able to get involved in projects outside of the team if you wish to. However, your work on this team must take priority. It cannot be the reason that you didn’t have time to work on a brief.

If you’re approached to get involved in non-team work you don’t want to do, and you don’t feel comfortable saying no yourself, the team leads can say no on your behalf. Ask the requestor to get in touch with the team leads.

Ceremonies

You are expected to attend all core ceremonies. These are;

  • cycle planning
  • retro
  • show & tell
  • mid-cycle check in

If you can’t make it because of sickness or leave, you are expected to contribute beforehand or catch up afterwards.

All ceremonies other than retro are recorded. It’s important that you make time to watch recordings afterwards as ceremonies are used to cascade important information to the entire team. It’s also your opportunity to find out what others are working on and give feedback.

Please be on time to these meetings, and any other facilitated workshops. A lot of effort goes into planning a workshop. Please be respectful of that. Please also let facilitators know in advance if you can’t join by declining an invitation. Please don’t leave invitations without a response as this causes uncertainty for the facilitator. If you’re not sure whether you can attend, utilise the ‘Maybe’ response with your reason.

During show & tell, a playback is expected from every squad. It is the epic lead’s responsibility to organise the playback, however it does not need to be the epic lead to delivers it. We encourage all squad members to get involved in sharing their work with the wider team.

Keep GitHub updated

You are expected to keep the GitHub cycle board up to date, notably the briefs. Delivery managers on the team use this to monitor pace and progress, and use the information for reporting purposes. Visibility of work is a core principle of agile teams.

During reflection week, the epic lead should be closing the current brief and removing the card from the cycle board. Small stories can be created where appropriate for work which is leftover and added to the small stories epic to be tracked. Call on a delivery manager if you need help doing this.

Using Slack

As a team that is not co-located and with many different working patterns, we use Slack to communicate with each other. That’s why it’s vital that you must make time to check Slack and read messages from your colleagues. It’s an important mechanism for sharing information and seeking help.

You are not expected to be on Slack all of the time but please do check it multiple times a day and respond to questions which are asked of you.

Community activities

The GOV.UK Design System is an open-source product which openly encourages contribution from users. It is expected that all team members support community activities on the team. This support can take many forms and does not necessarily mean speaking at events or facilitating workshops.

Even if you are not playing an active role in a community event, you are still encouraged to join the session and take advantage of the opportunity to hear directly from users.

Celebrating our work

You are encouraged to take all opportunities available to celebrate yours and the team’s work at GDS events such as Show the Thing. It doesn’t have to be a major effort. You can re-use bits from show & tell, or community calls to form a presentation.

If you’re not comfortable with presenting but would like to share something, consider writing a blog post or weeknote to share with GOV.UK colleagues, or talk to others in your squad about whether they can share something at a show & tell.