SCRUM

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From the course by Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

625 ratings

Michigan State University

Business of Games and Entrepreneurship

625 ratings

Course 3 of 5 in the Specialization Game Design and Development

As well as a form of art and entertainment, games are about business. Whether you want to work at a game studio, start your own business or make games as a hobby, recognizing the dynamic landscape of the videogame industry is critical to finding your place. This course will introduce you to game production, project management, teamwork skills, and how to position your game ideas and yourself in the broader marketplace. By the end of the course, you will be able to develop an impactful portfolio of game work to get noticed and/or develop an effective business plan to bring your game to market.

From the lesson

Games are Made of People

I think one of the most important things to realize about the business of games is that games are made up of people. While I'm borrowing the line from "Soylent Green" to be a bit funny, the reality is that creative people really do live and breath the games that they make and a game can't exist without a good team behind it. In this module, you will explore the fundamentals of game production and teamwork. You will get a foundation in some of the project management tools and techniques that while you may not use them on this project will help you be a better game developer in the long run.

Project Management Techniques6:58

Complexity and Iteration6:29

Project Management Tools6:14

Meet the Instructors

Casey O'Donnell
Associate Professor
Media and Information

[MUSIC]

So we started off talking about why the waterfall method doesn't really work all

that well, in particular for games.

And we talked about iteration and

complexity, and Agile Software Development.

So now let's talk about Scrum.

Which is a very particular kind of Agile Software Development.

So you can see here this is an image of an actual Scrum from rugby.

So the idea is that everybody's coming together and tussling around and

trying to get the ball and get play started.

And so the reason this image gets used is because

that coming together is an important part of Scrum.

Where team members get together and they talk about what's getting worked on,

what's going right, what's not going right, and that is a regular occurrence.

But the idea is that you come together and talk about things.

So the goal of Scrum is really about managing complexity, right?

And the fact that projects, game projects in particular, but software development

projects in general, are unpredictable and subject to change, right?

And there's all of this stuff going on.

And so that's what that coming together is about, right?

And so the goal of Scrum is to manage those things through Visibility,

Inspection and Adaptation.

If you communicate things and you talk about them and

you make visible all of those elements, you're gonna get further faster.

So we've concluded here that Scrum in 10 minutes, which is a video you can go and

watch, that's a nice overview and a quick introduction to the process.

We tend to use it in our classes and for you working here on Coursera,

the key component is going to be about if you are working in teams or

you are working with others is how you communicate, how you get together and

how frequently you're communicating those things back and forth.

The key thing that you're doing is that you're keeping track of what's not done,

what's getting worked on.

And having a goal, right?

So sprinting, right?

So typically, sprints range from things like a week, two weeks, but

in that sprint, you have a clearly defined,

deliverable type of goal that's going to meet particular needs.

You're going to be able to articulate it.

And so the difference being you never are kind of go off into a hole for any.

Were longer than a week or two weeks.

Right?

So you can never lose more than a week or two weeks, even if you spin your wheels.

But a key feature is also daily team meetings, right?

Everybody gets up.

They talk about what they're working on.

What's going right, what's going wrong, so that everybody's kind of aware.

And it also allows for information sharing.

People can say oh, well we solved that problem over here, and

this would be a really good time to think about this.

Or oh, that's gonna be really dependent on this thing that I'm working on.

And that's the goal, right?

So often in software development projects and

game projects, things just don't get talked about.

The idea behind Scrum is to get those things out in the open,

with that goal of visibility.

What can we learn from Scrum that we can use?

The idea is that communication, being clear about what's getting worked on,

being aware of what features are most important, right?

And if something takes a really long time, you have that conversation ahead of time.

Well, what do we need to cut to still hit our deadline?

And so those are what some of the key components that we're looking

for in Scrum.

Now you don't have to use all of these, right?

The reality is that game development companies don't use all pieces of Scrum or

all pieces of Agile.

They use the pieces that work for them, and work for their teams.

And so that's what you're looking for, too.

One of my favorite things is just being able to put

postcards up of what's getting worked on right now.

So that everybody knows what's moving, or what pieces are finished, right?

So when you can move a postcard to the end, and say, hey, this feature is done.

At any given time you can go look at that feature and say, oh yeah, here it is.

Here's how it's working, okay, we're good.

Thinking about that video,

what are some of the pieces that you think are important?

Things that would work well for you.

Those are the things you wanna take away.

A lot of game companies, as I've already mentioned, use Scrum or

a modify Scrum approach to manage their projects.

And so the reason we also talk about it here is that it's good to know that.

Because with many game studios using Scrum,

it's in your best interest to have a sense of what that is, even if it's different.

A lot of game studios will say, well, we do things differently here.

And that's okay, right?

That's true, because projects and teams are different from studio to studio.

And so, it's your job to be able to adapt to those ways of project management.

We're gonna keep talking about project management.

I'll be back on the next video.

[MUSIC]

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