Project Management Principles

(or what’s a really good process and documents to consider)(and how I’d run your game dev process if I was your digital producer)

About me• IT Apps projects and Programme for about 7 years, • Film and broadcast media (Including running my

own production company)• Currently?

My name is Shirley:I’m a Mass Effect Addict

(hi Shirley is the correct response)

WHY??

• structure• projects get waylaid without a clear plan. • listening to people talk about where things

weren’t quite right in their game dev, and I’ve thought “this is where I come in!”

And I want to play your game!

Concept Paper• brief overview of your idea that provides

a high level explanation of the idea. • Not too brief…• Write about hardware, software (apps /

platforms), marketing intent, audience…

What we’d call a business case…• This is the big document that explains your game:– Storyline (aka the script)– Characters (Tell us who they are!)– Events

• timeline of tasks• all resources you think you’ll need• Budget. What are you going to spend?• Test / release plans • Risks and Issues

Risks and Issues• Risks are a list of things that might happen to

the project• If a risk actually occurs (someone has a

meltdown and steals away your server etc), then it becomes an issue

• Issues need attention

Waterfall v Agile v Waterfagile…

Many methodologies : • Waterfall.• Agile.• “Waterfagile”.

Resourcing – or who’s doing what?• Who’s doing what?• How are you tracking their progress?• Agile / Kanban walls• Electronic and online Tools.

Image courtesy of adiera1 @ deviatnart

Monitoring and Reporting

• How are you going against plan?• What’s derailed progress?• What areas need attention this week?• Frequency of reporting?

Release plans

• How do you plan to deploy from dev to test to dev to test to prod?

• How will you release patches to fix bugs?• How will you address undocumented features?

testing

• How do you plan to undertake testing?• How are you going to attempt bug fixes? • How are you going to categorise your bugs?

Lessons Learned

• Review the process and note what went well, what didn’t go well, what could be improved and WTF?

Run Rabbit Run LLR

Legal documents

Nothing trashes a friendship like money

So, who else does this stuff?Many PMs are happy to share knowledge.

Places to look for these people are:• Game Developers of Wellington facebook page

• IdeaForge

• LinkedIn

In summary…This may seem quite boring: • these are important; They provide a framework

of tools to plan and monitor work.

Not imperative to use them all, only what works.

How to contact me?Email: Shirleyjones.156@gmail.com

Ello: @tis_Shirley

Ideaforge: Shirley

LinkedIn: nz.linkedin.com/pub/shirley-jones/15/a76/151/

(also happy to do v/o work)

Thanks to…• Amelia, Steve, Ricardo and Adam from “RunRabbitRun” for

letting me use their lessons learned review slide from the graduation pitch

• Enspiral Dev Academy for letting me coerce their students into letting me the slide

• Dave (Mr Me) for putting up with me doing ad hoc gap analysis of how things could work better for game devs

• Aimee at NerdNite and IdeaForge for providing sanity.• BizDojo, for hosting us tonight and providing vittels• Wellington Game Dev MeetUp for allowing me to rave at you for

a while about documentation and processes• Vic Uni for letting us use their space.

NOW GO EAT PIZZA!