Scrum

During this project that we’re working on we have been using “scrum” as a tool for our workflow, and in this post I will reflect on how the usage of it has been.

Scrum is a method used when working in software development teams and its purpose is to make the process more effective. At the start of the project a backlog is filled out containing all the features and artefacts needed for the product to be finished. The period between the start and the final deadline is divided in to sprints, which in our case was one week. For each sprint, artefacts from the backlog are set as goals to be done during the week. The team meets up every day, on so called stand up meetings, to report on what has been done since the day before and what will be done until the next.

In my opinion this way of working has proved to be very useful. The daily stand up meetings makes it easy to keep track of how everyone is doing with their individual tasks and keeps the work flowing because of the constant showcase of everyone’s results. Dividing the work and planning it towards deadlines, such as the alpha, have been easy to handle as we have been able to clearly see what’s left to be done on the game and what we’re lacking to accomplish the requirements of the milestones.
Even though there has been a lot of positives while using scrum, we have been experiencing some setbacks too. The concept of the game we’re working on is originally not our own, and as filling out the backlog had to be done rather quickly and the first sprint soon followed, not everything was fully designed or thought through. As mentioned in my last blog post, the outcome of this was that features were made which turned out to be flawed and had to be fixed. Yet again, meeting up often proved helpful as we could find the problem quickly and figure out the solution before it was too far gone.

All in all, my experience of scrum have been very positive so far and the issues my group had are things that could have been prevented with a bit more preparations, but that’s not something caused by scrum in itself.

About Maximilian Kassander

2017 Game Design

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