Scrum

Scrum – Working Method

Working in a team -especially one that is creating something from nothing- is not an easy task and it’s very important to have a set frame for the working process to make sure that all goes as smoothly as possible. We are currently working in the agile method Scrum. A process where every step of the way is surveyed, tested and prioritized.

The basic idea goes like this; the overall goal is set early on and broken down into pieces, these pieces are then prioritized, broken further down into tasks and worked on in sprints. A sprint is a set time frame where the only goal is to finish one piece, once the sprint is over the work that has been done is reviewed and tested. Next sprint, the next piece is worked on, and so and so forth. A sprint is usually around 2 weeks, this way if something goes wrong, or a feature does not live up to expectations, it will be obvious very quickly and can thusly be dealt with before it becomes a bigger issue down the line.

As a team with an extremely short deadline to fulfill, we decided to make each sprint only one week long and have daily stand up meetings to make sure that nothing problematic goes undetected for long. So far it has been extremely beneficial for us. Communication has been going smoother once we started talking about our progress every day, and reviewing the weeks work every Friday has painted a clear picture of the projects progression (which has assisted in the weekly prioritization as well).

However, as with all good thing there are also downsides. Having the entire team involved with the process every step of the way has proven to create a lot of arguments and disagreements. This lead to the preparation stage (before the actual work began) becoming far longer then necessary. Not to mention that a lot of the prioritization is hard to carry out for a team of inexperienced game designers as ourselves. But even so, it is my belief that both these issues will be solved with more experience in the field, and with all these frequent meetings and reviews, I believe we are heading the right way.

Lots of Love
// Maya