How Scrum has affected my development
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At first, scrum didn’t really affect me at all, but that was mostly because I didn’t really “do it” properly. I kept working like I had done in the past, that is, postpone things as much as possible until I only had a day (or in worst case, hours) to finish all of the tasks I had agreed to finish by the weeks end. This is obviously not a very good way of working, not for yourself but especially not for your team. Being able to iterate and re-iterate is a crucial part of any decently sized project, especially one with a relatively short deadline and even more so when designing games. I started noticing as the weeks went by that I kept having unfinished tasks. This made me feel bad, of course, cause I obviously wasn’t contributing as much as my other team members. That was when I decided to change the way I work. This last week I’ve worked a bit every day, and not only has it been my most productive week so far, it has also been the week in which I feel like I’ve produced the best assets. Working little by little on things no only greatly reduces how stressed you feel and how big your tasks for the sprint seem, it also let’s you consult your team members about what to do as soon as you have a question and then you can fix or add things on the spot. An example of this was when I was working on the sprite for an enemy’s attack and it was unclear whether it was a projectile or not so I asked them, got clarification, and proceeded. Our group has been really good at attending daily stand-ups and meetings in general and we’ve had plenty of design meetings, which have helped us all to have a unified vision of where our game is heading. Sprint plannings and reviews help give a clear understanding of where you are and where to go next, while daily stand-ups help to keep track of where everyone is currently and if they need any help to move forward. Overall, I think scrum has helped me get work done, as well as improve the quality and flow of said work.  |