SCRUM and agile methodologies in Production What is SCRUM?

“The Agile approach is to iterate on the development of the game and react to the results, such as emerging elements of the actual game play, by constantly planning what is to come next.” – Clinton Keith, CTO High Moon Studios http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/dec2005/id20051222_296337.htm

Why SCRUM for game development? Better than nothing? Better than what you are doing now? Try it and

see.

What is SCRUM?

High Level: Agile process to manage and control

development Wrapper for existing Engineering practices Team-based approach to develop iteratively

when requirements are rapidly changing

Ingredients: Product Backlog (User Stories) Sprint Cycles (short) Daily Standup (communication)

What is SCRUM?

James Bach. October 1995. "American Programmer" http://www.controlchaos.com

Why SCRUM?

Iterations – 2 week time box How far wrong can you go in two

weeks?

Why SCRUM?

Stakeholder Involvement Get what you want “I don't know the key to success, but the key

to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby.

Please the stakeholder.

Why SCRUM?

Focus on working (demonstrable) code What you see is what you got

BEWARE! There are several levels of “working” and several definitions of “done.” This will torch you!

Why SCRUM?

Predictability – people like it! You will learn to estimate work

better, but be patient. The first few tries may hurt....