Index

A

AC (acceptance criteria), 161–163

accountability, 382, 384

Ackoff, Russell L. 321

active listening, 379–380

adjourning phase, 386

adoption strategies, 353, 418–422

apprentice stage of, 355–359

beachhead teams, 419–422

characteristics of successful, 369–370

journeyman stage of, 359–367

master stage of, 367–369

overview of, 353–354

affinity mapping, 379

Agile

advantages of, 24–27, 513

challenges of, 37

characteristics of successful, 38

combining with Lean, 23

compared to Lean, 16, 24

myths in, 315–316

change as bad, 319

double standard, 318

endless meetings, 320–321

fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), 316–318

silver bullet myths, 316

successful adoption of, 329–330

values of, 27–30

customer collaboration, 29–30

in distributed development, 465–466

individuals and interactions, 27–29

response to change, 30

working software, 29

Agile Project Management with Kanban (Brechner), 492

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Derby and Larsen), 92

agreements, working, 382

AI spawn optimization, 267

alpha, 20, 266

analogy, estimating story size with, 189

Anderson, David, 111

Angel Studios, 247, 275

Apocrypha, 449–452

Apollo program, 253

apprentice stage of transformation, 355–359

adjustment to Sprint pacing in, 355

characteristics of, 355

Daily Scrum challenges, 356–359

DoDs (Definitions of Done), 355–356

arcade games, history of

hit-or-miss publishing model, 8

iterative approach, 5–6

waterfall-style methodologies, 6–8

architecture, costs of, 257–258

ARPDAU (average revenue from daily active users), 477

art and audio

art debt, 138

art knowledge, creation of, 277–278

audio designers, 280

audio mixing, 268

budgets and, 279–280

characteristics of successful, 281

concerns about Agile and Scrum in, 273

creative tension with, 275–276

Kanban and, 281

leadership in, 274–275

“not done yet” syndrome, 278

problems with, 271–272

QA (quality assurance) and, 276–277

assembly line, 43

asset size, 229–230

asset validation, 245

Asteroids, 5–6

Atari, 5, 6

attention deficit Product Owners, 146–147

audio. See art and audio

automated play-throughs, 245

autonomous underwater vehicle development, 238

autonomy, 396, 412. See also self-organization

average revenue from daily active users (ARPDAU), 477

B

A/B testing, 10

backlogs. See Product Backlog; Sprint Backlog

batch size, 117, 230–231, 485–486

Battlefield, 169–171

BDUF (Big Designs Up Front), 20

beachhead teams, 419–422

advantages of, 419–420

cross-team coaching, 421–422

split-and-reform strategy, 420–421

split-and-seed method, 420

Beck, Brandon, 473

beta, 20

BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), 184, 449

Big Designs Up Front (BDUF), 20

big hairy audacious goals (BHAGs), 184, 449

Birchler, James, 487

black-box testing, 299

Blanchard, Ken, 386

Bleszinski, Cliff, 61

Blinn, Scott, 29

Blue-Green Deployment, 493

boards

Kanban, 112–113

task, 82–84, 218–219

bottlenecks, 118–119

Bourne Conspiracy, 143, 149, 288–290

branching, 265

Broadmore, Greg, 507

Brooks, Fred, 431

Brütal Legend, 322

budgets

art, 279–280

optimization within, 267–268

static geometry, 267

buffering, 115, 119

bug databases, 266, 304–305

build iterations, 242–249

commits, 242–243

configurations, 245

definition of, 242–243, 459

failure notification, 246–247

iteration cycles in, 242–243

motivational tools, 247

revision control, 250

stability of, 248–249

team focus on, 249

testing, 244–246

built-in quality, 30–31

burndown charts, 79–80, 81

burndown trends, 80–82

C

canary deployments, 489

cards

index, 163

Kanban, 112–113

task, 78–79

Cargo Cult Scrum, 324–326

CCP Games, 150, 449–452

Certified Product Owner (CPO), 423

Certified Scrum Master (CSM), 423

Challenger space shuttle disaster, 319

change

allowing for, 128–129

challenges of, 255

late, 256

myths about, 319

responding to, 30

chaos engineering, 493–494

Chaos Monkey, 493

chartering a vision, 60–61, 184–186

charts, burndown, 79–80, 81

chickens (Scrum), 64

CIS (continuous integration server), 259–260

clients, definition of, 376

cliques, in teams, 106

coaching teams

advantages of, 373–374

characteristics of successful, 373–374, 393

coaching skills, 374

coaching stance, 375–377

cross-team, 421–422

definition of, 386

group facilitation, 377–379

affinity mapping, 379

Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making, 377–378

planning poker, 378

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195, 379

path to, 374–375

personal and team motivational factors, 381–384

Scrum Masters as coaches, 375

studio coaches, 415–416

team maturity models, 384–387

Five Dysfunctions of a Team, 384

situational leadership, 386–387

Tuckman model, 385–386

tool and practices for, 379–381, 387–393

Cohn, Mike, 177, 318

collaboration, 48, 334–335, 467

collection of user stories, 171–174

co-location of teams, 361–363

Columbia space shuttle disaster, 319

commitment, 77–78

deferral of, 31–32

ideal of, 47

lack of, 384

commits, 242–243

committees, Product Owner, 144–145

common goals, 382

communication

in coaching, 379–381

facilitation of, 57

of stability, 248

team, 431–432, 435

communities of practice, 444–445

compassion, 377

component teams, 439

concept green lights, 348–350

concept stage, 212

confession, group, 391–392

conflict, fear of, 384

consistency, 325–326

constraints, theory of, 118

continual improvement, 116, 227–232

asset size, 229–230

batch size, 230–231

cycle time, 228–229

empowerment through, 232

facilitation of, 57

status quo versus, 323–324

waste reduction, 230–232

continual planning, 128–129

continuous build tests, 246

continuous delivery, 488–490

continuous improvement, 367

continuous integration, 265

continuous integration server (CIS), 259–260

contract negotiation, 29–30

contracts, 207–208, 342–344

convergent zone, 377–378

Conway, Melvin, 435–436

Conway’s Law, 435–436

cost

of development, 24–25

ordering Product Backlog by, 127, 132

courage, 47

CPO (Certified Product Owner), 423

creative tension, 275–276

cross-discipline teams, artists on. See art and audio

cross-team coaching, 421–422

crunch periods, 3, 327–329

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 413

CSM (Certified Scrum Master), 423

culture change, Scrum as tool for, 321–322

Cunningham, Ward, 137

customers

collaboration with, 29–30

definition of, 60

Scrum, 62–63

cycle time, 114, 226–227, 228–229

D

daily build tests, 246

Daily Scrum, 46, 84–87, 320–321, 356–359

Darkwatch, 293

databases, bug, 304–305

deadlines, fixed, 208–209, 344

Agile development with, 182

stakeholder relationships and, 345–348

debt

definition of, 216

example of, 138

management of, 138–139

measurement of, 216–218

types of, 137–138

debugging, 265–266

Defender, 5–6

Definitions of Done. See DoDs (Definitions of Done)

delegating, 386

delivery time, 32

on-demand planning, 116

Deming, William Edwards, 43

demos, marketing, 198

dependencies

management of, 463–464

scaling, 461

splitting user stories along, 175

deployment

definition of, 21

full-scale, 422–425

live game development, 487–494

design (Scrum)

characteristics of successful, 296

design debt, 138

documentation, 285, 286–287

iteration cycles in, 291

knowledge creation and, 284–285

lead designer role in, 295–296

learning by failing in, 294

point-based, 293

problems with, 284–285

Product Backlog and, 288–290

role of, 283

set-based, 288–290

Dev Ops Handbook (Kim, et al.), 473–474

development DoDs (Definitions of Done), 140

development stages, 211–215

description of, 212–213

with live games, 214–215

managing with releases, 214–215

mixing, 213

need for, 211–212

Development Teams, 54

deviance, normalization of, 319

DevOps, 473–474

Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making, 377–378

directing, 386

director roles, 406

discipline leadership, 405–406

disc-streaming optimization, 267

dispersed development, 467–469

distant Product Owners, 149–150

distributed development, 464–467

divergent zone, 377–378

documentation

in Agile development, 29

design, 285, 286–287

stakeholder demand for, 131

DoDs (Definitions of Done)

bad examples of, 137

development, 140

“done done” column, 305

examples of, 137, 268

minimum, 198

QA (quality assurance) and, 140

scaling and, 461

sets of, 141–142

stakeholder, 140

workflow management and, 115

Donkey Kong, 331

double standard, myth of, 318

Doulin, Alistair, 258

Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders, 507

Drive (Pink), 396, 411

Drucker, Peter, 193

Duke Nukem Forever, 147

Dunbar, Robin, 432

E

E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) demos, 25

Edmondson, Amy, 381

Eisenhower, Dwight D. 181

Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) demo, 25

elevator statements, 184–185

Eliot, T. S. 275

embedded QA (quality assurance), 303

emergence, 48

emergency swim lanes, 491–492

emergent Agile practices

characteristics of successful, 510–511

feature boards, 498–500

indie game development, 508–510

launch title development, 505

new platforms, development for, 504

parallel development, 506–507

story mapping, 501–504

emergent requirements. See feature creep

empiricism, 47

encouragement, notes of, 389

endless development, myth of, 317

epics, 128, 160

Esmurdoc, Caroline, 322

estimation, 183

of feature size, 186–195

accuracy of, 188

effort spent on, 187–188

lack of, 195

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195

story points, 189–193

story workshops, 188–189

T-shirt sizing, 194

velocity, 186–187, 193

in user stories, 167–168

EVE Online, 150

Everett, James, 287

expert dependencies, 463–464

expert opinion, 189

external stakeholders, 332

Extreme Programming (XP), 259

versus non-XP practices, 264–265

pair programming, 262–265

TDD (test-driven development), 259–261

F

facilitation, 377–379

affinity mapping, 379

Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making, 377–378

planning poker, 378

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195, 379

failure

failure notification, 246–247

failure signals, 492

learning by, 294

Falcone, Dante, 228

fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), 316–318

fear of conflict, 384

stakeholder fears, 337–338, 342

The Fearless Organization (Edmundson), 381

feature area teams, 443–444

feature areas, 446

feature boards, 498–504

feature creep, 19–20

feature size estimation, 186–195

accuracy of, 188

effort spent on, 187–188

lack of, 195

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195

story points, 189–193

story workshops, 188–189

T-shirt sizing, 194

velocity, 186–187, 193

feature teams, 438–439

feature toggles, 489

feedback

from development teams, 74–75

feedback loops, 474–478

honesty of, 90

from players, 90

from stakeholders, 74, 89–90

Fibonacci series, 191

The Fifth Discipline (Senge), 411

fighter aircraft, 474–478

filters, Internet, 413

first releases, 424–425

first-party problems, 335–336

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team (Lencioni), 384

Five Whys, 383–384

fixed deadlines, 182, 208–209, 344, 345–348

Flaccid Scrum, 258

flattening of hierarchies, 400

flow

concept of, 412–414

finding, 414–417

focus

challenges of, 333–334

ideal of, 47

lack of, 358–359

whole game, 435–436

Ford, Henry, 43

forecasting, 77–78, 183

forming phase, 385

frameworks, 42. See also Scrum

frequency of testing, 246

FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), 316–318

full-scale deployment, 422–425

first release and Sprint, 424–425

Product Backlog, 425

transition planning, 423–424

G

GAAS (Games as a Service), 36–37, 472–473

Gamasutra.com, 16

game boxes, 185

Game Developer Magazine, 16

game development. See also Agile; Lean methodologies; live game development

challenges of

feature creep, 19–20

overoptimistic schedules, 20–21

production, 21–22

response to players, 23

costs of, 24–25

crisis facing, 3, 9–11

deployment/shipping, 21

dispersed, 467–469

distributed, 464–467

history of

hit-or-miss publishing model, 8

iterative approach, 5–6

microprocessor development, 4–5

waterfall-style methodologies, 6–8, 25

myths of, 317

postmortems of, 16–19

stakeholders in. See stakeholders

game positioning maps, 185–186

game staff, 54

Games as a Service (GAAS), 472–473

Games as a Service (GAAS) model, 36–37

Gear Up! (Keith and Shonkwiler), 497

goals

changes in, 94

common, 382

development, 50, 480–481

Sprint, 50, 68–73

Graham, Brian, 136

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, 489

graphics-partitioning technology, 267

green lights, 348–349

Greenleaf, Robert K. 408

groan zone, 377–378

group confession, 391–392

group facilitation, 377–379

affinity mapping, 379

Diamond of Participatory Decision-Making, 377–378

planning poker, 378

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195, 379

growth, coaching, 373–375

H

Ha, 354

handoffs, reduction of, 118

hand-to-hand combat, user stories for, 173–174

Hardening Sprints, 198–200, 364

Hay Day, 495

health of teams, 391

Heijunka boards, 112–113

Hershey, Paul, 386

hierarchies, flattening of, 400

High Moon Studios

Agile art in, 273–274

crunch periods at, 327

documentation at, 287

Hardening Sprints at, 199–200

history of, 328–329

pair programming at, 263

self-organization in, 403

user stories, 163

hiring issues, 264

history of game development, 4–5

hit-or-miss publishing model, 8

iterative approach, 5–6

microprocessor development, 4–5

waterfall-style methodologies, 6–8

hit-or-miss publishing model, 8

hourly build tests, 246

hypotheses, 480–481

I

ideal days, 192

ideation, 377–378

impediments

addressing, 55–56

failure to report, 357

organizational, 418

studio culture as, 418

IMVU, 261, 487

incident retrospectives, 492–493

independence, of user stories, 164–165

index cards, 163

indie game development, 508–510

Industrial Revolution, 43

information radiators, 362

innovation, reduction in, 9. See also emergent Agile practices

Innovation Games (Hohmann), 336

integration teams, 443

Intel, 4

intensity, Sprint length and, 76

interactions, 27–29

internal stakeholders, 332

Internet filters, 413

interrupted Sprints, 93

intrinsic motivation, 411–412

INVEST attributes (user stories), 164–169

estimable, 167–168

independent, 164–165

negotiable, 165–166

sized appropriately, 168

testable, 168–169

valuable, 166–167

iterations, 5–6, 220

autonomous underwater vehicle development, 238

benefits of improving, 237–238

build, 242–249

commits, 242–243

definition of, 242–243

failure notification, 246–247

iteration cycles in, 242–243

motivational tools, 247

revision control, 250

stability of, 248–249

team focus on, 249

testing, 244–246

challenges of, 335

characteristics of successful, 250

in design, 291

overhead sources, 238–239

personal, 241–242

PlayStation project, 240–241

times, 239–241

J

Jobs, Steve, 186

journeyman stage of team transformation, 359–367

characteristics of, 359–360

continuous improvement, 367

release cycles, 360

release dysfunction, 363–366

team co-location, 361–363

K

Kanban, 11

arts and audio, 281

benefits of, 228

continual improvement, 116, 227–232

asset size, 229–230

batch size, 230–231

cycle time, 228–229

empowerment through, 232

facilitation of, 57

waste reduction, 230–232

definition of, 112

development of, 111

leveling production flow with, 222–227

continual improvement, 57, 116, 227–232

timeboxing, 46, 48, 222–224

work leveling, 224–227

outsourcing, 232–233

Scrum compared to, 120–121

successful implementation of, 121

support teams for, 440–441

tracking, 358

workflow improvements, 114–120

workflow management

buffering, 115

continual improvement, 116, 227–232

definition of done in, 115

on-demand planning, 116

ordered work, 116

pull system, 114–115

Retrospectives, 117

Reviews, 117

work in progress limits, 115

workflow measurement, 113–114

workflow visualization, 112–113, 221

Kano analysis, 134–135

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), 134

kill-gate mode, 26–27

knowledge, ordering Product Backlog by, 128, 134

knowledge creation, 31, 277–278, 284–285

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), 134

L

Ladas, Corey, 111

large-scale Scrum, 417–418

Large-Scale Scrum (Larman and Vodde), 416

launch title development, 505

lead designer role, 295–296

leadership, 36–37, 409–411

art, 274–275

director roles, 406

discipline, 405–406

importance of, 403–404

mentors, 407

reviews by, 407

servant, 408–409

situational, 386–387

studio, 404–405

systems thinking and, 409–411

trust, building of, 404

values and principles in, 404

League of Legends, 473

Lean methodologies. See also Agile; Kanban; Scrum

advantages of, 24–27

challenges of, 37

characteristics of successful, 38

combining with Agile, 23

compared to Agile, 16, 24

definition of, 14–15, 215–216

Lean Startup, 473–474

principles of, 30–32

production debt

definition of, 216

example of, 138

management of, 138–139

measurement of, 216–218

types of, 137–138

relay racing metaphor for, 15

The Lean Startup (Ries), 473–474

learning by failing, 294

Legend of Zelda, 331

LEGOTM bricks, 278

length of Sprints, factors influencing, 74–77

ability to plan Sprint, 76

balanced intensity, 76

development team experience, 74–75

planning and review overhead, 75–76

resolving disagreements in, 77

stakeholder feedback, 74

technical practices, 76–77

level lods, 245

leveling production flow, 222–227

timeboxing, 46, 48, 222–224

work leveling, 224–227

lightweight methods. See Agile

listening, active, 379–380

live game development, 471

benefits of Agile for, 473

challenges of, 10–11

characteristics of successful, 495

deployment and support, 487–494

continuous delivery, 488–490

support tools, 490–494

development flow, 482–487

batch size, 485–486

pipeline, 482–486

QA (quality assurance), 487

DevOps for, 473–474

feedback loops, 474–478

fighter aircraft in, 474–478

GAAS (Games as a Service), 472–473

Lean Startup for, 473–474

measurement and learning in, 494–495

planning, 478–481

lockdowns, 319

loops, feedback, 474–478

love card wall, 388

M

MAGE (Massively Agile Game Environment) framework, 434. See also scaling teams

Magic Leap One, launch title for, 506–507

management fad, myth of Scrum as, 317–318

managers, 43

mapping, affinity, 379

maps, game positioning, 185–186

Mario Kart, 185, 331

marketing, 57, 198, 336

Martin, Bob, 258

Massively Agile Game Environment. See MAGE (Massively Agile Game Environment) framework

massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), 36, 212

master stage of team transformation, 367–369

characteristics of, 359–368

practice change by, 369

team organization and membership, 368–369

mastery, 396, 412

maturity models, 384–387

McDonnell Douglas, 41

McGuire, Rory, 284

Mech Warrior 2, 108–109

meetings. See also Sprints

Daily Scrum, 46, 84–87, 320–321, 356–359

facilitation of, 57

incident retrospectives, 492–493

myths of, 320–321

release planning, 183–184

Scrum, 320–321

Scrum-of-Scrums, 457

Meier, Sid, 61

mentors, 407

Merrill, Marc, 473

micromanagement of backlog, 357–358

microprocessors, history of, 412

middleware, 24

Midnight Club, 203, 276, 280

Midtown Madness, 276, 286, 306, 343–344

Midtown Madness 2, 279

milestone payments, 334–335

minimum viable game (MVG) requirements, 205–207

Miyamoto, Shigeru, 61, 331

MMOs (massively multiplayer online games), 212

mobile app load, 268

mobile game markets, 10–11

Moore, Gordon, 4

Moore’s law, 4, 8

Morton, Tim, 108–109

motherboards, 4

motivation

factors influencing, 381–384

intrinsic, 411–412

tools for, 247

moving targets, 255

MuSCoW analysis, 136

MVG (minimum viable game) requirements, 205–207

Mythical Man Month, 253

N

negotiation

contract, 29–30

in user stories, 165–166

Netflix Chaos Monkey, 493

network upgrades, 249

neutrality, 376

“The New New Product Development Game” (Takeuchi and Nonaka), 44

new platforms, development for, 504

Newell, Gabe, 404

ninjas, 64

Nintendo 64, 158

Nintendo Ultra-64, 331

Nintendogs, 331

normalization of deviance, 319

norming phase, 385

“not done yet” syndrome, 278

notes of encouragement, 389

O

openness, 47

optimization, 266–269

within budget constraints, 268–269

goals of, 266–267

Lean principles for, 32

optimization debt, 138

postponed, 267–268

refactored code, 260–261

ordered work, 116

ordering Product Backlog, 127–128, 132–137

by cost, 127, 132

by knowledge, 128, 134

by risk, 127, 132–134

by value, 127, 134–137

organizational impediments, 418

outsourcing, 232–233

overnight transfers, 248

overoptimistic schedules, 20–21

overtime, 326–327

ownership, 55–56

P

Paanenen, Ilkka, 395, 404

Pac-Man, 5–6

pair programming, 262–265

parallel development, 506–507

partial transfers, 248

PBIs (Product Backlog Items), 116, 237. See also user stories

definition of, 126–127

estimation of, 186–195

effort spent on, 187–188

lack of, 195

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195

story points, 189–193

story workshops, 188–189

T-shirt sizing, 194

velocity, 186–187, 193

ordering, 127–128, 132–137

by cost, 127, 132

by knowledge, 128, 134

by risk, 127, 132–134

by value, 127, 134–137

plans to implement, 70–73

story points, 195–196

PechaKucha introductions, 389–390

peer reviews, 407

people, respect for, 32

performance, team, 108–109

performance coaching. See coaching teams

performing phase, 386

personal iterations, 241–242

personal motivational factors, 381–384

pigs (Scrum), 64

pillars, 438

Pink, Dan, 396, 411, 414

pipeline, development, 482–486

pirates, 64

Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, 108

planning. See release planning

Planning Poker game, 190–191

platform smoke tests, 245

players

feedback from, 90

influence on development, 63

live game development, 479–480

responding to, 23

PlayStation, 5

play-testing, 305–307

point-based design, 293

policies, 115

Pong, 4, 6

pool teams, 443

pools, QA (quality assurance) in, 303

portfolios, dates driven by, 336–337

postmortems, 16–19

postponed optimizations, 267–268

postponed value, 364–366

post-production, 213

practice, communities of, 444–445

pre-deployment releases, 37

premortems, 133–134

pre-production, 21, 212, 348

principles

in coaching, 376–377

of leadership, 404

of Lean methodologies, 30–32

of Scrum, 47–48

prioritization, Product Backlog, 48, 127–128

processes

in Agile development, 27–28

change in, 321–322

in distributed development, 468

producers, 308, 309–310

Product Backlog. See also DoDs (Definitions of Done); PBIs (Product Backlog Items); Product Owners; release planning

challenges of, 142

change and emergence in, 128–129

characteristics of successful, 152

collection of user stories on, 166, 171–172

continual planning, 128–129

creating, 129–131

debt

example of, 138

management of, 138–139

types of, 137–138

debugging in, 266

definition of, 36, 48–49, 126, 161

design and, 288–290

encouraging team engagement and alignment through, 129

establishment of, 425

goals of, 123–124

for live game development, 481

MAGE (Massively Agile Game Environment), 436–438

ordering, 48, 127–128, 132–137

QA (quality assurance) and, 135–136

refining, 131–132

spikes, 134

Product Backlog Items. See PBIs (Product Backlog Items)

product management support, 447–448

Product Owner Committees, 144–145

Product Owners

attendance at Retrospectives, 92

attention deficit, 146–147

Bourne Conspiracy project example, 143

distant, 149–150

elimination of, 150–152

hierarchy of, 445–447

influence on Sprint length, 77

lead designers as, 295–296

producers as, 309–310

Product Owner Committees, 144–145

proxy, 144

publisher-side, 339–340

allaying of fears, 342

meeting of project challenges, 340–341

production plan management, 341

responsibilities of, 339–340

responsibilities of, 59–62, 339–340

role of, 142–143

silo, 145–146

tunnel vision, 147–149

production

challenges of, 21–22

definition of, 212–213

future of, 307–308

green lights, 348

production flow, leveling, 222–227

timeboxing, 46, 48, 222–224

work leveling, 224–227

production plan management, 341

production debt, 138

definition of, 216

example of, 138

management of, 138–139

measurement of, 216–218

types of, 137–138

production teams, 439–440

progression, splitting user stories along, 176

progress-tracking techniques, 78–84

burndown charts, 79–80, 81

burndown trends, 80–82

sticky notes, 79

task boards, 82–84, 218–219

task cards, 78–79

war rooms, 84

project boards, 453–454

project management. See also Agile; Lean methodologies; user stories

characteristics of successful, 235

contracts, 207–208

development stages in, 211–215

fixed ship dates in, 182, 208–209

importance of, 203–204

live development versus, 36–37

MVG (minimum viable game) requirements, 205–207

project structure, 33–35

releases, 37

risk management, 209–211

Scrum challenges in, 218–220, 234–235

shared vision in, 60–61

workflows, 35–36

projects, definition of, 205

proxy Product Owners, 144

psychological safety, 381

publisher-producer, 61

publisher-side Product Owners, 339–340

allaying of fears, 342

meeting of project challenges, 340–341

production plan management, 341

responsibilities of, 339–340

pulling work, 114–115

purpose, definition of, 396, 412

pyramids, testing, 244

Q

QA (quality assurance), 265

approach to, 300

for art, 276–277

black-box testing, 299

bug databases, 304–305

built-in quality, 30–31

characteristics of successful, 311

cost and, 24–25

DoDs (Definitions of Done) and, 140

embedded versus in pools, 303

future of, 307–311

knowledge creation, 31

for live game development, 487

play-testing, 305–307

problems with, 298–299

Product Backlog and, 135–136

QA play-throughs, 245

QC (quality control) versus, 299–300

role of, 297–298, 301–302

testers per team, 303–304

white-box testing, 299

QC (quality control), 299–300

questions, in coaching, 379–381

R

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195, 379

Red Dead, 255

refactored code, 260–261

Reinertsen, Donald, 476

Reinventing Organizations (Laloux), 396

rejection of Scrum, 326

release backlogs, 196

release cycles, 360

release dysfunction, 363–366

Hardening Sprints and, 364

postponed value, 364–366

release planning, 181, 448–454. See also Sprints

characteristics of successful, 200

continual, 128–129

definition of, 182–183

on-demand, 116

feature size estimation, 186–195

accuracy of, 188

effort spent on, 187–188

lack of, 195

rank ordering/sizing, 132, 194–195

story points, 189–193

story workshops, 188–189

T-shirt sizing, 194

velocity, 186–187, 193

first release and Sprint, 424–425

goals of, 181–182

Hardening Sprints, 198–200

iterating against plan, 342–344

live game development, 478–481

managing stages with, 214–215

marketing demos, 198

meetings, 183–184

pre-deployment, 37

production, 341

release plans, 184

scaling, 462–463

shared vision, chartering, 184–186

story points, 195–196

transition, 423–424

updates of release plans, 197–198

releases, definition of, 33, 37, 51

remote stakeholders, feedback from, 89–90

Remote Teamwork Tools (Keith and Shonkwiler), 468

Rennie, Bruce, 323

research dependencies, splitting user stories along, 175

resets, Sprint, 93–94

Resident Evil, 158

resources, definition of, 206

respect for people, 32, 47

responding to players, 23

results, inattention to, 384

Retrospectives, 90–92, 320–321

cadence of, 117

definition of, 46

facilitation of, 57

format of, 91

importance of, 90–91

incident retrospectives, 492–493

Product Owner attendance at, 92

scaling, 460–461

tracking results of, 92

return on investment (ROI), 53, 60

Reviews, 88–90, 320–321, 407

cadence of, 117

definition of, 46

facilitation of, 57

format of, 88–89

goals of, 88–89

influence on Sprint length, 75–76

player feedback in, 90

remote stakeholder feedback in, 89–90

Review bazaar, 460

scaling, 459–460

studio stakeholder feedback in, 90

360 reviews, 392–393

trust, building of, 410

revision control, 250

Riccio, Mike, 163

Riot Games, 473

risk, ordering Product Backlog by, 127, 132–134

risk management, 209–211

risk matrix, 133

robotic phone interface testing, 246

Rockstar Games, 204

ROI (return on investment), 53, 60

roles. See names of specific roles

rolling milestones, 335

root cause analysis, 383–384

Rowe, John, 395, 404

Royce, Winston, 7–8

S

sagas, 160

Sammy Studios, 254, 328–329

Scaling Lean and Agile Development (Larman and Vodde), 448

scaling teams, 65

challenges of, 430–434

characteristics of successful, 469

communities of practice, 444–445

dependencies, 461, 463–464

dispersed development, 467–469

distributed development, 464–467

MAGE (Massively Agile Game Environment) framework for, 434

pillars, 438

Product Backlog, 436–438

Product Owners, 445–447

project boards, 453–454

release planning, 448–454, 462–463

Scrum-of-Scrums meetings, 457

Sprints, 455–461

team formation, 462

team organization, 438–444

whole game focus, 435–436

Schafer, Tim, 61

scheduling, overoptimistic, 20–21

Schwaber, Ken, 44, 80, 318

Scrum, 11

adoption of, 329–330

challenges of, 321

addition of value, 323

Cargo Cult Scrum, 324–326

crunch periods, 327–329

overtime, 326–327

process and culture change, 321–322

rejection of, 326

status quo versus continual improvement, 323–324

characteristics of successful, 65

chickens and pigs analogy, 64

customer role in, 60, 62–63

Daily Scrum, 46, 84–87, 320–321, 356–359

definition of, 42

design. See design (Scrum)

DoDs (Definitions of Done)

bad examples of, 137

development, 140

examples of, 137, 268

minimum, 198

QA (quality assurance) and, 140

scaling and, 461

sets of, 141–142

stakeholder, 140

workflow management and, 115

Flaccid Scrum, 258

history of, 43–44

Kanban compared to, 120–121

large-scale, 417–418

managers, 43

meetings, 320–321, 457

myths of, 315–316

change as bad, 319

double standard, 318

endless meetings, 320–321

fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD), 316–318

silver bullet myths, 316

overview of, 44–47

ownership in, 55–56

premortems, 133–134

principles of, 47–48

Product Backlog. See Product Backlog

product management support, 447–448

production challenges of, 218–220, 234–235

releases, definition of, 33, 37, 51

Scrum Guide, 80

Scrum Masters, 54–59, 308, 356–357, 375

Scrum Type C, 111

Scrum-of-Scrums meetings, 457

Sprints. See Sprints

stakeholders. See stakeholders

teams. See teams

values of, 47

Scrum Guide, 80

Scrum Masters, 54–59

attributes of, 57–59

producers as, 308

reporting to, 356–357

responsibilities of, 54–57

Scrum Type C, 111

Scrum-of-Scrums meetings, 457

SEAL teams, 104

Sega, 329, 395

selection practices, teams, 402

self-management teams, 101, 105

self-organization, 48, 101, 468. See also adoption strategies

case studies

Supercell, 398–399

Valve Software, 397–398

challenges of, 399

characteristics of successful, 426

definition of, 396–397

flow

concept of, 412–414

finding, 414–417

full-scale deployment, 422–425

intrinsic motivation in, 411–412

large-scale Scrum, 417–418

leadership, 409–411

art, 274–275

director roles, 406

discipline, 405–406

importance of, 403–404

mentors, 407

reviews by, 407

servant, 408–409

studio, 404–405

systems thinking in, 409–411

trust, building of, 404

values and principles in, 404

skepticism of, 401

team membership for, 400–403

self-selecting membership, 400–401

semi-daily build tests, 246

servant leadership, 408–409

set-based design, 288–290

sets of DoDs (Definitions of Done), 141–142

shared accountability, 382

shared vision, chartering, 60–61, 184–186

ship dates, fixed, 182, 208–209, 344, 345–348

shipping, definition of, 21

Shonkventures, 381, 409

Shonkwiler, Grant, 381, 409, 497

Shu, 354

silence, in questioning, 379

Silo Product Owners, 145–146

situational leadership, 386–387

size

of assets, 229–230

of batches, 117, 230–231

rank ordering/sizing, 194–195

of story points, 191

of teams, 105–106, 283–284

T-shirt sizing, 194

of user stories, 168

skepticism, 401

skills, increasing, 414–415

Smuggler’s Run, 124, 125, 160

socialization, team, 390–391

SOFTEN method, 380

software, replacing Daily Scrum with, 359

Space Invaders, 5–6

specialists, generalizing, 104

spikes, 134, 167–168

split-and-reform strategy, 420–421

split-and-seed method, 420

splitting user stories, 174–176, 189

along conjunctions, 175

along research or prototype dependencies, 175

by progression or value, 176

tips for, 176

Spotify, 445

Sprint Backlog, 266, 357–358

Sprint Resets, 93–94

Sprints

challenges of, 92–96

characteristics of successful, 96–97

Daily Scrum and, 84–87, 320–321, 356–359

definition of, 36, 50–51

estimation of, 73

factors influencing length of, 74–77

flow of, 68

forecasting, 77–78

goals of, 94–96

Hardening, 198–200, 364

leadership. See leadership

length of, 58, 74, 76–77

Product Backlog. See Product Backlog

progress-tracking techniques in, 78–84

burndown charts, 79–80, 81

burndown trends, 80–82

sticky notes, 79

task boards, 82–84, 218–219

task cards, 78–79

war rooms, 84

Retrospectives. See Retrospectives

Reviews. See Reviews

rules of, 67–68

scaling, 455–461

Sprint Backlog, 266, 357–358

Sprint Goals, 50, 68–73, 94–96

Sprint Planning, 320–321, 410

Sprint Resets, 93–94

teams. See teams

stable builds, 248–249

stage-gate model, 348–350

stages, development, 211–215

description of, 212–213

with live games, 214–215

managing with releases, 214–215

mixing, 213

need for, 211–212

stakeholders

communication with, 57

definition of, 46, 50, 332

demand for documentation from, 131

external, 332

feedback from, 74, 89–90

internal, 332

Scrum, 62–63

stakeholder DoDs (Definitions of Done), 140

working with

Agile contracts with, 342–344

Agile pre-production, 348

allaying of fears, 342

challenges of, 331–337

characteristics of success with, 350

collaboration, 334–335

fears in, 337–338

first-party problems, 335–336

fixed ship dates, 345–348

focus, 333–334

iterating against plan, 342–344

limited iterations, 335

meeting of project challenges, 339–342

milestone payments, 334–335

portfolios driving dates, 336–337

production plan management, 341

publisher-side Product Owners, 339–342

stage-gate model, 348–350

understanding of Agile, 338–339

static geometry budget, 267

sticky notes, 79

stories. See user stories

storming phase, 385

story mapping, 501–504

story points, 189–193

abuse of, 192–193

alternatives to, 194–195

definition of, 189–190

Fibonacci series and, 191

ideal days, 192

limits of, 192

Planning Poker game, 190–191

release planning with, 195–196

sizes of, 191

story workshops, 188–189

strategies, test, 244–245

studio coaches, 415–416

studio culture, 418

studio leadership, 57, 404–405

studio stakeholders, feedback from, 90

Supercell, self-organization at, 398–399

support

definition of, 386

live game development, 487–494

support teams, 440–442

Sutherland, Jeff, 44, 80, 111

swim lanes, 491–492

Swordfish Studios, 64

systems thinking, 409–411, 435

T

takt time, 226–227

task boards, 82–84, 218–219

task cards, 78–79

TCR (technical certification requirement), 51

TDD (test-driven development), 259–261

Team Fortress, 286

team maturity models, 384–387

Five Dysfunctions of a Team, 384

situational leadership, 386–387

Tuckman model, 385–386

team-building exercises, 106–107

teams, 445–447. See also leadership; roles

artists on. See art and audio

characteristics of successful, 100–101, 108–109

chemistry and performance in, 108–109

chickens and pigs analogy, 64

cliques within, 106

coaching. See coaching teams

co-location of, 361–363

communication, 57, 431–432, 435

cross-discipline, 101, 102–104

designer roles on, 286

development, 54, 74–75

engagement and alignment of, 129

formation of, 462

generalizing specialists in, 104

health of, 391

influence on Sprint length, 74–75

interaction in, 102

motivational factors, 381–384

organization and membership of, 368–369, 438–444

practice change by, 369

QA (quality assurance) on, 301–302

removal of members from, 401–402

scaling. See scaling teams

Scrum, 52–63

self-management, 101, 105

self-organization in, 101, 400–403

shifting of roles in, 416–417

size of, 105–106, 283–284

team-building exercises, 106–107

testers on, 303–304

transformations, 353

apprentice stage of, 355–359

characteristics of successful, 369–370

journeyman stage of, 359–367

master stage of, 367–369

overview of, 353–354

transition, 235, 423

types of, 438–444

value of, 99

technical certification requirement (TCR), 51

technical debt, 138, 257

technical requirements checklist (TRC), 51

technology, Agile

challenges of, 253–258

characteristics of successful, 269–270

debugging, 265–266

definition of, 13–14

influence on Sprint length, 76–77

optimization, 266–269

XP (Extreme Programming), 259

pair programming, 262–265

TDD (test-driven development), 259–261

test-driven development (TDD), 259–261

testers, number of, 303–304

testing. See also QA (quality assurance)

Agile, 300

black-box, 299

build iterations, 244–246

test frequency, 246

test strategies, 244–245

play-testing, 305–307

of user stories, 168–169

white-box, 299

Theisz, Erik, 376

theme, 160

Theory of Constraints, 118

360 reviews, 392–393

throughput, 114

time

interation, 239–241

lack of, 95–96

time and materials form, 207–208

time estimates, converting points to, 192–193

transfer, 248–249

timeboxing, 46, 48, 222–224

tool teams, 442

tools, in Agile development, 27–28

Toyota, 43

tracer bullets, 168

tracking progress, 78–84

burndown charts, 79–80, 81

burndown trends, 80–82

Kanban, 358

sticky notes, 79

task boards, 82–84, 218–219

task cards, 78–79

war rooms, 84

transfer time, reduction of, 248–249

transformation, team, 353

apprentice stage of, 355–359

adjustment to Sprint pacing in, 355

characteristics of, 355

Daily Scrum challenges, 356–359

DoDs (Definitions of Done), 355–356

characteristics of successful, 369–370

journeyman stage of, 359–367

characteristics of, 359–360

continuous improvement, 367

release cycles, 360

release dysfunction, 363–366

team co-location, 361–363

master stage of, 367–369

characteristics of, 359–368

practice change by, 369

team organization and membership, 368–369

overview of, 353–354

transition planning, 423–424

transition teams, 423

transitioning Scrum teams, 235

transparency, 56, 467

TRC (technical requirements checklist), 51

trends, burndown, 80–82

trust, building of, 337, 384, 404, 409–411

T-shirt sizing, 194

Tuckman model, 385–386

tunnel vision Product Owners, 147–149

U

uncertainty, 253–255

unit tests, 245

Unreal Engine 3, 233

up-front architecture costs, 257–258

upgrades, network, 249

user roles, 159, 169–171

user stories

acceptance criteria in, 161–163

advantages of, 176–177

attributes of successful, 164–169

estimable, 167–168

independent, 164–165

negotiable, 165–166

sized appropriately, 168

testable, 168–169

valuable, 166–167

challenges of, 158

characteristics of successful, 178

collection of, 171–174

definition of, 33, 157, 159

epics, 128, 160

hand-to-hand combat example, 173–174

index cards for, 163

INVEST attributes of, 164–169

levels of detail in, 160–161

sagas, 160

spikes, 167–168

splitting, 174–176, 189

along conjunctions, 175

along research or prototype dependencies, 175

by progression or value, 176

tips for, 176

story mapping, 501–504

story points. See story points

story workshops, 188–189

theme, 160

tracer bullets, 168

user roles in, 159, 169–171

when to avoid, 171

V

value, 364–366

addition of, 323

creation of, 29

ordering Product Backlog by, 127, 134–137

reduction of, 10

splitting user stories along, 176

of user stories, 166–167

value streams, 482

value/cost ordering, 136–137

value-first approach, 25–26

Valve Software, 397–398

Vanlandingham, Shonny, 189

velocity

crunch periods and, 327–328

feature size estimation and, 186–187, 193

limits of, 366

vicious cycles, 409–411

video game market, growth of, 8

vision, 430, 479

visualization of workflow, 112–113, 498–504

Voltaire, 237

W

war rooms, 84

Warmuth, Shelly, 102

waste reduction, 30, 117, 230–232

waterfall game development, 6–8, 25

Wednesday Pizza Topic, 414–415

Weta Gameshop, 287

white-box testing, 299

Whys, Five, 383–384

Wicked Problems, Righteous Solutions (DeGrace and Stahl), 44

WiP (work in progress) limit, 115, 441

Woodward, Justin, 510

work, lack of, 96

work environments, deterioration of, 10

work in progress (WiP) limit, 115, 441

work leveling, 224–227

workflow

improvement of, 117–120

management of, 114–117

buffering, 115

continual improvement, 116, 227–232

definition of done in, 115, 268

on-demand planning, 116

ordered work, 116

pull system, 114–115

Retrospectives, 117

Reviews, 117

work in progress limits, 115

measurement of, 113–114

visualization of, 112–113, 221

working agreements, 382

working software, 29

Wright, Will, 61

X

XP (Extreme Programming), 259

versus non-XP practices, 264–265

pair programming, 262–265

TDD (test-driven development), 259–261

Y-Z

YF-23 fighter jet, development of, 41–42

Zeppelin, 146

Zuill, Woody, 195