Contents
Foreword
Preface
Part I: The Problem and the Solution
Chapter 1: The Crisis Facing Game Development
The Solutions in This Chapter
A Brief History of Game Development
Iterating on Arcade Games
Early Methodologies
The Death of the Hit-or-Miss Model
The Crisis
Less Innovation
Less Value
Deteriorating Work Environment
Mobile/Live Challenges
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 2: Agile and Lean Development
The Solutions in This Chapter
What Is Agile?
What Is Lean?
Why Game Development Is Hard
Learning from Postmortems
The Problems
Applying Both Agile and Lean
Why Use Agile and Lean for Game Development?
Cost and Quality
Finding the Fun First
Iterate More, Fail Fast
Agile Values Applied to Game Development
Lean Principles Applied to Game Development
What an Agile Project Looks Like
Agile Development
Projects Versus Live Development
Pre-Deployment Releases
The Challenge of Agile and Lean
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Part II: Scrum and Kanban
Chapter 3: Scrum
The Solutions in This Chapter
The History of Scrum
The Big Picture
The Values of Scrum
The Principles of Scrum
Product Backlog, Sprints, and Releases
The Product Backlog
Sprints
Releases
Scrum Roles
The Scrum Team
Development Team
Scrum Master
Product Owner
Customers and Stakeholders
Chickens and Pigs
Scaling Scrum
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 4: Sprints
The Solutions in This Chapter
The Big Picture
Planning
The Sprint Goal
Part One: Identifying the Sprint Goal
Part Two: Planning How to Achieve the Sprint Goal
Length
Tracking Progress
Task Cards
Burndown Chart
The Burndown Trend
Task Board
War Room
The Daily Scrum Meeting
The Practice
Improving the Daily Scrum
Sprint Reviews
Review Format for Smaller Games
Remote Stakeholders
Studio Stakeholders
Players
Honest Feedback
Retrospectives
The Meeting
Posting and Tracking Results
Sprint Challenges
Sprint Interrupted
Sprint Resets
Problems with the Sprint Goal
Running Out of Work
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 5: Great Teams
What Are Great Teams?
The Solutions in This Chapter
An Agile Approach to Teams
Cross-Discipline Teams
Generalizing Specialists
Self-Management
Team Size
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 6: Kanban
The Solutions in This Chapter
What Is Kanban?
Visualizing the Workflow
Measuring the Workflow
Managing the Workflow
Improving the Workflow
Reducing Batch Sizes and Waste
Reducing Handoffs
Responding to Bottlenecks
The Difference with Scrum
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 7: The Product Backlog
The Solutions in This Chapter
A Fateful Meeting
Why Design Documents Fail
The Product Backlog
Product Backlog Items
Ordering the Product Backlog
Continual Planning
Allowing for Change and Emergence
Encouraging Team Engagement and Alignment
Creating the Product Backlog
Managing the Product Backlog
Backlog Refinement
Who Attends the Refinement and When?
Techniques for Ordering the Product Backlog
Defining “Done”
Types of Debt
Managing Debt
Development DoDs and Stakeholder DoDs
QA and DoDs
Sets of Done
Challenges
Dysfunctional Product Ownership
The Proxy Product Owner
Product Owner Committees
Silo Product Owners
Attention Deficit Product Owner
Tunnel Vision Product Owner
Distant Product Owner
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Part III: Agile Game Development
Chapter 8: User Stories
Speaking Different Languages
The Solutions in This Chapter
What Are User Stories?
Levels of Detail
Acceptance Criteria
Using Index Cards for User Stories
INVEST in User Stories
Independent
Negotiable
Valuable
Estimable
Sized Appropriately
Testable
User Roles
Collecting Stories
Splitting Stories
Split Along Research or Prototype Dependencies
Split Along Conjunctions
Split by Progression or Value
Other Splitting Tips
Advantages of User Stories
Face-to-Face Communication
Everyone Can Understand User Stories
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 9: Agile Release Planning
The Solutions in This Chapter
What Is Release Planning?
Release Planning Meetings
Chartering a Shared Vision
Estimating Feature Size
Velocity
How Much Effort Should We Spend Estimating?
Where Are Story Sizes Estimated?
Story Points
Alternatives to Story Points
Release Planning with Story Points
Updating the Release Plan
Marketing Demos and Hardening Sprints
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 10: Video Game Project Management
Midnight Club Story
The Solutions in This Chapter
Minimum Viable Game
Contracts
Hitting Fixed Ship Dates
Managing Risk
Incorporating Risk in the Product Backlog
The Need for Stages
The Development Stages
Mixing the Stages
Managing Stages with Releases
Lean Production
Production Debt
The Challenge of Scrum in Production
Lean Production with Kanban
Working with Scrum
Transitioning Scrum Teams
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 11: Faster Iterations
The Solutions in This Chapter
Where Does Iteration Overhead Come From?
Measuring and Displaying Iteration Time
Measuring Iteration Times
Displaying Iteration Times
Personal and Build Iteration
Personal Iteration
Build Iteration
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Part IV: Agile Disciplines
Chapter 12: Agile Technology
The Solutions in This Chapter
The Problems
Uncertainty
Change Causes Problems
Cost of Late Change
Too Much Architecture Up Front
An Agile Approach
Extreme Programming (XP)
Debugging
Optimization
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 13: Agile Art and Audio
The Solutions in This Chapter
Concerns About Agile
Art Leadership
Art on a Cross-Discipline Team
Creative Tension
Art QA
Building Art Knowledge
Overcoming the “Not Done Yet” Syndrome
Budgets
Audio at the “End of the Chain”
Shifting to Kanban
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 14: Agile Design
The Solutions in This Chapter
Designs Do Not Create Knowledge
The Game Emerges at the End
Designing with Scrum
A Designer for Every Team?
The Role of Documentation
Parts on the Garage Floor
Set-Based Design
Lead Designer Role
Designer as Product Owner?
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 15: Agile QA and Production
Agile QA
The Solutions in This Chapter
The Problem with QA
Most QA Is Just QC
Agile Testing Is Not a Phase
The Role of QA on an Agile Game Team
QA, Embedded or in Pools?
How Many Testers per Team?
Using a Bug Database
Play-Testing
The Future of QA
Agile Production
The Role of a Producer on an Agile Project
Producer as Scrum Master
Producer as Product Owner Support
Producer as Product Owner
The Future of Production
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Part V: Getting Started
Chapter 16: The Myths and Challenges of Scrum
The Solutions in This Chapter
Silver Bullet Myths
Scrum Will Solve All of Your Problems for You
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
Scrum Challenges
Scrum as a Tool for Process and Culture Change
Scrum Is About Adding Value, Not Task Tracking
Status Quo Versus Continual Improvement
Cargo Cult Scrum
Scrum Is Not for Everyone
Overtime
Crunch
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 17: Working with Stakeholders
The Solutions in This Chapter
Who Are the Stakeholders?
The Challenges
Focus Comes Too Late
Milestone Payments and Collaboration
Limited Iteration
First-Party Problems
Portfolios Drive Dates
Building Trust, Allaying Fear
The Fears
Understanding Agile
Publisher-Side Product Owners
Meeting Project Challenges Early
Managing the Production Plan
Allaying the Fears
Agile Contracts
Iterating Against a Plan
Fixed Ship Dates
Agile Pre-Production
The Stage-Gate Model
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 18: Team Transformations
The Solutions in This Chapter
The Three Stages of Team Transformation
The Apprentice Stage
The Journeyman Stage
The Master Stage
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Part VI: Growing Beyond
Chapter 19: Coaching Teams for Greatness
What Is a “Great Team”?
Why Coaching?
The Solutions in This Chapter
Coaching Skills
My Path to Coaching
The Coaching Stance
Facilitation
Coaching Tools
Coaching Teams to Higher Performance
Psychological Safety
Common Goals
Shared Accountability
Working Agreement
Root Cause Analysis
Team Maturity Models
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
The Tuckman Model
Situational Leadership
Coaching Tools and Practices
Lighten the Mood
Love Card Wall
Notes of Encouragement
PechaKucha Introductions
Socialize the Team
Measure Team Health
Group Confession
360 Reviews
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 20: Self-Organization and Leadership
The Solutions in This Chapter
Self-Organization
Valve Software
Supercell
Growing Teams
Leadership
Agile Leadership
Studio Leadership
Discipline Leadership
Director Roles
Mentors
Reviews
Servant Leadership
Systems Thinking
Turning a Vicious Cycle into a Virtuous Cycle
Seeking Out Systems
Intrinsic Motivation
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose
Flow
Finding the Right Challenge
Increasing Skills
Studio Coaches
Shifting Roles
Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS
Adoption Strategies
Beachhead Teams
Full-Scale Deployment
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 21: Scaling Agile Game Teams
The Solutions in This Chapter
Challenges to Scaling
Loss of Vision
Adding People Late
Communication Among Large Teams
Should You Scale Up?
Scaling the Wrong Process
The MAGE Framework
Whole Game Focus
Communication, Purpose, and Autonomy
Systems Thinking
Scaling the Right Way
The Product Backlog
Tools and Mind Maps
Pooling Functions and Dispersing Components
Pillars
Team Organization
Feature Teams
Component Teams
Production Teams
Support Teams
Tool Teams
Pool Teams
Integration Teams
Feature Area Teams
Communities of Practice
Product Ownership
Additional Roles
Project Management Support
Supplemental Roles
Pillar Champions
Releases
Release Planning
Rolling Out the Release Plan
Forming Teams
Updating the Release Plan
Using Project Boards
Sprints
Aligning Sprint Dates
The Scrum of Scrums
Sprint Planning
Sprint Reviews
Sprint Retrospectives
Managing Dependencies
Team Formation
Release Planning
Team Dependency Management
Reducing Expert Dependencies
Distributed and Dispersed Development
Distributed versus Dispersed
Challenges to Distributed Development
Challenges to Dispersed Development
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 22: Live Game Development
The Solutions in This Chapter
Games As a Service
Why Agility for Live Games?
DevOps and Lean Startup
Feedback Loops
Live Games and Fighter Aircraft
Live Game Feedback Loops
Measuring the Feedback Loop
Part One: Plan
Have a Vision
Model the Players
Establish the Goals
Identify an Incremental Step
Develop the Hypothesis
Part Two: Develop
Map and Measure the Entire Pipeline
Identify Ways to Improve the Pipeline
Reduce the Batch Size
QA for Live Games
Part Three: Deploy and Support
Continuous Delivery
Live Support Tools
Part Four: Measure and Learn
Measure Results
Do Retrospective Actuals and Update Your Vision
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Chapter 23: There Are No “Best” Practices
The Solutions in This Chapter
Visualizing Your Work
Feature Boards
Story Mapping
Developing for New Platforms
Launch Title Development
Parallel Development
Agile and Indie Game Development
The Draw of Indie Development
The Challenges of Indie Development
How Agile Development Helps
What Good Looks Like
Summary
Additional Reading
Conclusion
Index
