Agile Development
Benefits of Task Managements
- Encourages daily, weekly, and monthly progress.
- Helps breakdown a game into manageable chunks of development.
- Setting Deadlines makes you and team members accountable.
Set Production Milestones
- Milestones are production goals that mark a significant accomplishment in development, typically completion of features and/or content.
- Breakdown your games production schedule into Milestones
- Set deadlines to complete each Milestone. Typically set to every 1 or 2 months.
Minor Production Milestones
- Implementation of a Feature, or collection of Features.
Agile Process
Make a Task Backlog
- Starting with the first Milestone, list out all the tasks required to complete the Milestone.
- Note if a starting a task is dependent on completion of a previous task/s.
Select Tasks for Development
- Take some tasks from the Backlog and assign them to team members. Typically 1 to 5 tasks per person.
Set a Sprint Deadline
- Set sprint to end in 4 weeks. If your team has faster velocity, set the sprint to end in 2 weeks.
Work on task
- Pick one of the tasks in your Sprint Backlog to Actively work on.
- Once you complete it, check it off and grab another task from the Sprint Backlog.
- Review work and verified it's been delivered.
Build and Playtest the Game
- Build the Game. Log any Build Issues in the Bugs Backlog.
- Playtest the Game. Log any Bugs or Issues in the Bugs Backlog. Note any User Feedback.
Do a Sprint Review
- Review Production.
- Make Adjustments to Schedule and Backlogs.
- Review Bugs and Feedback.
- Move any Critical Bugs from the Bugs Backlog to your Sprint Backlog.
Move to the Next Sprint with Bugs Backlog
- Repeat the Task Backlog process for the next Milestone.
- Create a new Sprint Backlog with a new task list.
- If there are any critical or game breaking bugs, add them to the Sprint Backlog.
- Edit, create, or delete tasks based on changes in Game Design.
- Give yourself more or less task items depending on results from last sprint.
Move to the Next Milestone
- Repeat the Task Backlog process for the next Milestone.
Rinse and Repeat
- And you will eventually have a game.
Perform a Postmortem
Take the time to review your work and learn from it.
Ask questions such as:
- Did you finish you game? Why or Why not?
- Does the game that was created match the original creative vision?
- Are players satisfied with the results?
- How was the game received by the audience?
- Is the team satisfied with the results?
- Did the team meet the original production schedule?
- Did the team have to Crunch?
- Was production within budget?
- What parts of the development process worked well? What mistakes were made along the way that could've been avoided?
- What processes could be changed or improved?
- Is there any work that was completed that can be reused for future projects?
- Does the team feel like they can continue working together on future projects?