Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents at a Glance
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Part I: The Problem and the Solution
	Chapter 1: The Crisis Facing Game Development
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		A Brief History of Game Development
			Iterating on Arcade Games
			Early Methodologies
			The Death of the Hit-or-Miss Model
		The Crisis
			Less Innovation
			Less Value
			Deteriorating Work Environment
			Mobile/Live Challenges
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 2: Agile and Lean Development.
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		What Is Agile?
		What Is Lean?
		Why Game Development Is Hard
			Learning from Postmortems
			The Problems
		Applying Both Agile and Lean
		Why Use Agile and Lean for Game Development?
			Cost and Quality
			Finding the Fun First
			Iterate More, Fail Fast
			Agile Values Applied to Game Development
			Lean Principles Applied to Game Development
		What an Agile Project Looks Like
			Agile Development
			Projects Versus Live Development
			Pre-Deployment Releases
		The Challenge of Agile and Lean
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Part II: Scrum and Kanban
	Chapter 3: Scrum
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		The History of Scrum
			The Big Picture
			The Values of Scrum
			The Principles of Scrum
		Product Backlog, Sprints, and Releases
			The Product Backlog
			Sprints
			Releases
		Scrum Roles
			The Scrum Team
			Development Team
			Scrum Master
			Product Owner
		Customers and Stakeholders
		Chickens and Pigs
		Scaling Scrum
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 4: Sprints.
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		The Big Picture
		Planning
			The Sprint Goal
			Part One: Identifying the Sprint Goal
			Part Two: Planning How to Achieve the Sprint Goal
			Length
		Tracking Progress
			Task Cards
			Burndown Chart
			The Burndown Trend
			Task Board
			War Room
		The Daily Scrum Meeting
			The Practice
			Improving the Daily Scrum
		Sprint Reviews
			Review Format for Smaller Games
			Remote Stakeholders
			Studio Stakeholders
			Players
			Honest Feedback
		Retrospectives
			The Meeting
			Posting and Tracking Results
		Sprint Challenges
			Sprint Interrupted
			Sprint Resets
			Problems with the Sprint Goal
			Running Out of Work
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 5: Great Teams
		What Are Great Teams?
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		An Agile Approach to Teams
			Cross-Discipline Teams
			Generalizing Specialists
			Self-Management
			Team Size
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 6: Kanban
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		What Is Kanban?
			Visualizing the Workflow
			Measuring the Workflow
			Managing the Workflow
		Improving the Workflow
			Reducing Batch Sizes and Waste
			Reducing Handoffs
			Responding to Bottlenecks
		The Difference with Scrum
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 7: The Product Backlog
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		A Fateful Meeting
		Why Design Documents Fail
		The Product Backlog
			Product Backlog Items
			Ordering the Product Backlog
			Continual Planning
			Allowing for Change and Emergence
			Encouraging Team Engagement and Alignment
		Creating the Product Backlog
		Managing the Product Backlog
			Backlog Refinement
			Who Attends the Refinement and When?
			Techniques for Ordering the Product Backlog
		Defining “Done”
			Types of Debt
			Managing Debt
			Development DoDs and Stakeholder DoDs
			QA and DoDs
			Sets of Done
		Challenges
		Dysfunctional Product Ownership
			The Proxy Product Owner
			Product Owner Committees
			Silo Product Owners
			Attention Deficit Product Owner
			Tunnel Vision Product Owner
			Distant Product Owner
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Part III: Agile Game Development.
	Chapter 8: User Stories.
		Speaking Different Languages
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		What Are User Stories?
		Levels of Detail
		Acceptance Criteria
		Using Index Cards for User Stories
		INVEST in User Stories
			Independent
			Negotiable
			Valuable
			Estimable
			Sized Appropriately
			Testable
		User Roles
		Collecting Stories
		Splitting Stories
			Split Along Research or Prototype Dependencies
			Split Along Conjunctions
			Split by Progression or Value
			Other Splitting Tips
		Advantages of User Stories
			Face-to-Face Communication
			Everyone Can Understand User Stories
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 9: Agile Release Planning
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		What Is Release Planning?
			Release Planning Meetings
			Chartering a Shared Vision
		Estimating Feature Size
			Velocity
			How Much Effort Should We Spend Estimating?
			Where Are Story Sizes Estimated?
			Story Points
			Alternatives to Story Points
		Release Planning with Story Points
			Updating the Release Plan
			Marketing Demos and Hardening Sprints
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 10: Video Game Project Management
		Midnight Club Story
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Minimum Viable Game
		Contracts
		Hitting Fixed Ship Dates
		Managing Risk
			Incorporating Risk in the Product Backlog
		The Need for Stages
		The Development Stages
		Mixing the Stages
		Managing Stages with Releases
		Lean Production
			Production Debt
			The Challenge of Scrum in Production
			Lean Production with Kanban
			Working with Scrum
			Transitioning Scrum Teams
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 11: Faster Iterations
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Where Does Iteration Overhead Come From?
		Measuring and Displaying Iteration Time
			Measuring Iteration Times
			Displaying Iteration Times
		Personal and Build Iteration
			Personal Iteration
			Build Iteration
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Part IV: Agile Disciplines
	Chapter 12: Agile Technology
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		The Problems
			Uncertainty
			Change Causes Problems
			Cost of Late Change
			Too Much Architecture Up Front
		An Agile Approach
			Extreme Programming (XP)
			Debugging
			Optimization
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 13: Agile Art and Audio.
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Concerns About Agile
		Art Leadership
		Art on a Cross-Discipline Team
			Creative Tension
			Art QA
			Building Art Knowledge
			Overcoming the “Not Done Yet” Syndrome
			Budgets
			Audio at the “End of the Chain”
			Shifting to Kanban
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 14: Agile Design
		The Solutions in This Chapter
			Designs Do Not Create Knowledge
			The Game Emerges at the End
		Designing with Scrum
			A Designer for Every Team?
			The Role of Documentation
			Parts on the Garage Floor
			Set-Based Design
			Lead Designer Role
			Designer as Product Owner?
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 15: Agile QA and Production.
		Agile QA
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		The Problem with QA
		Most QA Is Just QC
		Agile Testing Is Not a Phase
		The Role of QA on an Agile Game Team
			QA, Embedded or in Pools?
			How Many Testers per Team?
			Using a Bug Database
			Play-Testing
			The Future of QA
		Agile Production
			The Role of a Producer on an Agile Project
			Producer as Scrum Master
			Producer as Product Owner Support
			Producer as Product Owner
			The Future of Production
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Part V: Getting Started
	Chapter 16: The Myths and Challenges of Scrum
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Silver Bullet Myths
			Scrum Will Solve All of Your Problems for You
			Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt
		Scrum Challenges
			Scrum as a Tool for Process and Culture Change
			Scrum Is About Adding Value, Not Task Tracking
			Status Quo Versus Continual Improvement
			Cargo Cult Scrum
			Scrum Is Not for Everyone
			Overtime
			Crunch
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 17: Working with Stakeholders
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Who Are the Stakeholders?
		The Challenges
			Focus Comes Too Late
			Milestone Payments and Collaboration
			Limited Iteration
			First-Party Problems
			Portfolios Drive Dates
		Building Trust, Allaying Fear
			The Fears
			Understanding Agile
			Publisher-Side Product Owners
			Meeting Project Challenges Early
			Managing the Production Plan
			Allaying the Fears
		Agile Contracts
			Iterating Against a Plan
			Fixed Ship Dates
			Agile Pre-Production
			The Stage-Gate Model
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 18: Team Transformations
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		The Three Stages of Team Transformation
			The Apprentice Stage
			The Journeyman Stage
			The Master Stage
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Part VI: Growing Beyond
	Chapter 19: Coaching Teams for Greatness
		What Is a “Great Team”?
		Why Coaching?
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Coaching Skills
			My Path to Coaching
			The Coaching Stance
			Facilitation
			Coaching Tools
		Coaching Teams to Higher Performance
			Psychological Safety
			Common Goals
			Shared Accountability
			Working Agreement
			Root Cause Analysis
		Team Maturity Models
			The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
			The Tuckman Model
			Situational Leadership
		Coaching Tools and Practices
			Lighten the Mood
			Love Card Wall
			Notes of Encouragement
			PechaKucha Introductions
			Socialize the Team
			Measure Team Health
			Group Confession
			360 Reviews
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 20: Self-Organization and Leadership
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Self-Organization
			Valve Software
			Supercell
			Growing Teams
		Leadership
			Agile Leadership
			Studio Leadership
			Discipline Leadership
			Director Roles
			Mentors
			Reviews
			Servant Leadership
		Systems Thinking
			Turning a Vicious Cycle into a Virtuous Cycle
			Seeking Out Systems
		Intrinsic Motivation
			Autonomy
			Mastery
			Purpose
		Flow
			Finding the Right Challenge
			Increasing Skills
		Studio Coaches
			Shifting Roles
			Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS
		Adoption Strategies
			Beachhead Teams
			Full-Scale Deployment
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 21: Scaling Agile Game Teams
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Challenges to Scaling
			Loss of Vision
			Adding People Late
			Communication Among Large Teams
		Should You Scale Up?
		Scaling the Wrong Process
		The MAGE Framework
			Whole Game Focus
			Communication, Purpose, and Autonomy
			Systems Thinking
			Scaling the Right Way
		The Product Backlog
			Tools and Mind Maps
			Pooling Functions and Dispersing Components
			Pillars
		Team Organization
			Feature Teams
			Component Teams
			Production Teams
			Support Teams
			Tool Teams
			Pool Teams
			Integration Teams
			Feature Area Teams
			Communities of Practice
		Product Ownership
		Additional Roles
			Project Management Support
			Supplemental Roles
			Pillar Champions
		Releases
			Release Planning
			Rolling Out the Release Plan
			Forming Teams
			Updating the Release Plan
			Using Project Boards
		Sprints
			Aligning Sprint Dates
			The Scrum of Scrums
			Sprint Planning
			Sprint Reviews
			Sprint Retrospectives
		Managing Dependencies
			Team Formation
			Release Planning
			Team Dependency Management
			Reducing Expert Dependencies
		Distributed and Dispersed Development
			Distributed versus Dispersed
			Challenges to Distributed Development
			Challenges to Dispersed Development
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 22: Live Game Development
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Games As a Service
		Why Agility for Live Games?
		DevOps and Lean Startup
		Feedback Loops
			Live Games and Fighter Aircraft
			Live Game Feedback Loops
			Measuring the Feedback Loop
		Part One: Plan
			Have a Vision
			Model the Players
			Establish the Goals
			Identify an Incremental Step
			Develop the Hypothesis
		Part Two: Develop
			Map and Measure the Entire Pipeline
			Identify Ways to Improve the Pipeline
			Reduce the Batch Size
			QA for Live Games
		Part Three: Deploy and Support
			Continuous Delivery
			Live Support Tools
		Part Four: Measure and Learn
			Measure Results
			Do Retrospective Actuals and Update Your Vision
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
	Chapter 23: There Are No “Best” Practices
		The Solutions in This Chapter
		Visualizing Your Work
			Feature Boards
			Story Mapping
		Developing for New Platforms
			Launch Title Development
			Parallel Development
		Agile and Indie Game Development
			The Draw of Indie Development
			The Challenges of Indie Development
			How Agile Development Helps
		What Good Looks Like
		Summary
		Additional Reading
Conclusion
Index
	A
	B
	C
	D
	E
	F
	G
	H
	I
	J
	K
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	M
	N
	O
	P
	Q
	R
	S
	T
	U
	V
	W
	X
	Y-Z