Production
By far my favorite part about game development is the collaboration it requires. I love to create welcoming enviroments where all members of the team are heard and feel like they have impact on the project. Below are some examples of how I have done that in previous projects!
Mid-Death Crisis
"The game is reflective of all of the different members because of the work Java put in."
- Shannon Mitchell, Adjunct Professor at Champlain College
My main contributions as Product Owner were planning each sprint, managing backlogs, keeping project scope in check, and putting the team's thoughts and concerns in the forefront of all of that.
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For sprint planning, I worked closely with our Producer, Quincy Gomes-Cedeño, to figure out what the highest priority tasks are and ensure all memebers of the team have a reasonable amount of work to do. I sat in on dicipline meetings to get a better understanding of every team memeber's thoughts on the project. If I was ever unsure what was a resonable amount of work for a given team member to do, I would be sure to have a converstation with them so that we could get on the same page. This happened often with the artists since I have little experience in the work they do. I sat in on many artist meetings to get a better understanding of their view of the project and so I had an opertunity to ask about scope.
As an example of this, we had one character artist but a lot of planned characters; up to 9 models in 10 weeks. After approaching her, she made it clear that was too much for just her to do. We brought it up during an artist meeting and came up with a solution that would allow us to reuse models, off-load some work to another artist who had less to do, and take some shortcuts due to the camera angle. We created a plan that she was confident she could do in the timeframe while also building in some wiggle room for if (and when) plans need to change. With the plan in place, I made sure to check-in each sprint and make any adjustments as needed. In the end, we completed all planned models with some time to spare.
"When Java asked about my work, I truly felt that they cared and wanted to learn more about what I do"
- Madeline Kane, Lead Artist for Mid-Death Crisis
To help the myself and the team keep track of tasks and scope, I created and maintained several google sheets on top of our Jira backlogs. One of these was the Master Asset List. This was were we could list out every asset we would need and break them out into tasks that we could then file into sprints. There were columns for who would do the task, the priority of that asset, and a progress status. This meant we could see exactly what each memeber would be doing and how it impacted the project with just a glance. We could easily move tasks as plans shift based on input from the whole team. Our producer and I could then take that information and translate them into stories for the Jira backlogs.
Once the project started to wind down, the tasks started to get smaller and things became much easier to slip through the cracks. There was also a bit of confusion about what needed to be put into the game and what could be considered polish. I expanded on the existing bug tracking sheet to add required implementation and polish/juice tabs. The required implementation tab was for things that have already been created (for example art or sound assets) that have not been put into engine while the polish/juice tab was for improvements to the game that would be nice to have. This separation was important because the required implementation was a higher priority as to make sure the work team members put into the project makes it into the final product. These tabs had columns for estimated impact and implementation difficulty. These were ranked from 1-3 then multiplied together to get a final priority which we could then sort by to prioritize the easier tasks that have a great impact to the game.
"Java listened to my concerns about spell effects and helped facilitate a meeting between me and other designers to address them."
- Joseph Lyons, Lead Programmer for Mid-Death Crisis
Learn more about what I did for this project here!
Contact
I'm always looking for new and exciting opportunities. Let's connect.
123-456-7890