Scrum – Has it helped?
|
The idea behind Scrum is to be more responsive to change. It encompasses an incremental structure to the project, where you work in smaller work cycles and develop a working solution continuously. As such, the main concepts within Scrum that we use are the sprints and the product backlog. The sprint planning and sprint review has worked well most of the time. The sprint review was missed once due to my being out of town, but was solved by filling out the Scrum Spreadsheet. Now to how it has affected our project. The nature of working in sprints has been very useful. It has proven much easier to progress in a project when working in smaller planning phases to make sure you have developed the necessary features for each deadline. As such, it has helped our group tremendously due to our lack of previous experience in creating a game. The sprints have been a way to manage our expectations and not assume too much or too little would come from our project. Other than sprints, the daily stand-ups have been a great way to check in on progress with the entire team. Not only that, but it has made the team more committed to the overall progress of the game. There is more interest in what the other departments are doing, due to these stand-up meetings. Furthermore, these stand-ups have helped the departments understand each others work and what goes in to their every day work schedule. These stand-ups are something that has brought our team closer together and created a more trusting environment for the team to work in. Unfortunately, there is something that could be improved. The backlog has been a little poorly upheld, but it is something that has been looked into during this week, albeit relatively little due to my being sick. The backlog has to be edited to provide more clarity in terms of where the project is and what changes have been made. In a more clear state, the backlog would provide all team members with a sense of where the project is in development. That being said, Scrum has been a great way of educating us on the way we make games. It has also helped create a more friendly an non-threatening environment, which has had a tremendous impact on our productivity.  |