Proof of Concept Tech: Sprint Planning

The unfolding of a game development saga continues here at the Southern Methodist University Guildhall.  The last chapter of my story left off with me, an associate producer, helping my producer interview and form teams.  These last few weeks set me on a journey through sprint planning for our first milestone: Proof of Concept- Technology.   In this blog I’ll go over the lows and highs I experienced while trekking through the mountains of sprint planning.

The difficulty I encountered first was lack of enthusiasm from a few people in regards to their team selection and the project planning process.  Not everyone was excited and pumped.  This downer attitude can infect other teammates and hinder the sprint planning process.  To solve this problem, I made sure to meet with the team member with the lackluster attitude to discuss his concerns.  I made sure to take the time to hear him out and address his concerns with care.  This seemed to help as he warmed up considerably to his teammates after we talked.

After scaling the “attitude” mountain I unknowingly wandered back down into another difficult area: the misty vale of an unplanned meeting.  After the teams formed, there were several design decisions that needed to be made in order for the sprint planning to progress.  Myself and the other three associate producers scheduled this meeting with the entire cohort and made the mistake of going into this meeting without an agenda or decision on who would run it.  Even though meeting was quite frustrating for all involved and seemed like a partial failure, it actually ended up being a golden opportunity to learn a number of valuable lessons.  Here are the gems of wisdom I mined from that meeting: 

First, always have a plan for the meeting.  Know what information you need to gather and how you are going to gather it.  Know what information you need to give and how you are going to give it.  Know who is leading the meeting.

Second, only gather developers who are key to the meeting.  In our situation this would have been the game designers and a few lead programmers.  By doing this, chaos is kept to a minimum.

Finally, make sure to take breaks from time to time.  This is especially true for meetings that involve a lot of decision making.  People need to give their brains a breather every so often.

By applying all these gems of wisdom to the next planning meeting, I was able to run things smoothly and climb out of the misty vale to the next part of the sprint planning process:  Product backlog and scrum board creation.

The product backlog and scrum board creation was a terrain I was familiar with.  I had just created some as a project for a previous production class, and the creation process actually went along smoother than I initially thought it would.  First I gathered needed information from my team.  To create the product backlog I made sure I understood what functionality was key to our game, and then logged it in a prioritized list organized by sprint.  To create the sprint scrum boards I met with my team and reviewed the list of deliverables required for the sprint.  The team members then told me what tasks needed to be done to create the required deliverables and the time estimates for these tasks.  I made sure to add in tasks and times for testing, scrum meetings, work review, bug fixing, and gameplay balance adjustments.

As my journey through Proof of Concept Technology sprint planning is drawing to a close I can’t help but marvel at how much I’ve learned and how much I still have to learn.  One of my favorite things about being an associate producer is the great variety of challenges I meet up with and the opportunity I have  to learn from them.  I love working with so many unique people and removing work blockers they face.  I love being the first to greet them when they walk in the door each morning and the last to say goodnight as they walk out each evening.  I love the opportunity I have to turn chaos into order and problems into solutions.  I know I still have a lot of room for improvement as an associate producer and I’m going to strive for it with all I’ve got!  Onward…towards the next part of my production adventure!