Today, I am going to explain how working with Scrum in its agile state has benefitted me as a programmer and as a game designer.
As a programmer I have picked up a terrible habit, I tend to focus on multiple things at the same time and when one of my assets isn’t working I start or carry on working on a different asset. Therefore, at the end of the day I have lots of half finished or half started assets with a disorganised project and I believe my brain’s excellent memory is my saving grace every time. Agile Scrum helps me focus on more specialised assets per week, so that I don’t work on something that is not necessary to complete at this stage of the development process. This is done by agile Scrum following its strict ritual of having what’s called Sprint Plans, with Sprint stand-up meetings everyday and Sprint reviews at the end of every Sprint plan. This helps me focus on specialised assets because in every sprint plan I am given assets to have completed by the Sprint review. Therefore, I can avoid working on something that isn’t for this stage of development.
My group uses Trello for Sprint planning, a website or app that allows for specialised group boards with specialised tabs, it also allows us to colour code and tag everyone’s specific assets so that we know who is working on what for this week. For example, I am tagged as NM with the colour code of Red for programming and Ana Laura Martinez, my lead artist, is tagged as AM with the colour code of purple for Art/Graphics.
Now that I am finished discussing how agile Scrum has benefitted me as a programmer it’s time to explain how it as benefitted me as a game designer. As a game designer I am expected work with a group of people who are all specialised in a different field of game development. The teams are made up of a Design Designer, 2 Project Managers, 2 Artists and 2 Prorgammers however, my group ended up with 1 Project Manager, 1 Programmer and 2 Artists. Which should put us at a disadvantage but since my groups chemistry works really well, we have actually been able to sometimes pull ahead of schedule.
Agile Scrum has influenced this good chemistry as during daily stand up meetings we can discuss what we have done since the last stand up and what we are planning on doing until the next stand up. This helps us focus because then we can communicate how different assets are working out and whether or not to scrap certain ideas. For example, if an Artist is unable to complete a third enemy for any reason, then the programmer can change their plan from programming the third enemy’s AI and focus on something else. In working with Scrum it becomes apart of the team’s chemistry as Shelly Warmuth, freelance writer and game designer writes, “A structured, militant environment will never create a team. A team works together toward a shared goal. A group works together toward a goal given to them. Scrum is messy and noisy. It lives, it breathes, it stretches, it morphs, and it expands. Interaction is the heart of the team. The heart of Scrum is the team.”
The reasons agile Scrum was chosen as our primary game development method is because out of the 2 main methods of game design, the Waterfall and Agile Scrum, agile Scrum helps us make design decisions faster and helps us be able to change ideas whenever we want without messing up the entire project. The Waterfall method is not a good design tool as it requires us to work on a set path and develop to that path without doing many changes or upgrades to the design. I have worked with the Watefall method before, where I was tasked to change a company’s paper based system into a digital system, I had to programme all their new systems and write up a huge document detailing every process of the design. At the end of that project I found that the Waterfall method can be restricting and I honestly didn’t like working with it, this is why I am glad I am now able to use the agile Scrum method. To read more on Scrum, go read Game-Scrum: An Approach to Agile Game Development
Programming Games 
Wasup Tashie! Fredrik here,
Your post was very interesting and I could really relate the what you said about how it’s easy to get distracted as a programmer and never completely finishing assets. I am however a bit jealous of having an excellent memory to offset that. That would be so nice to have but sadly it’s not the case for poor old me.
I’m not sure that groups normally should have two Project Managers, but that might just have been a typo and it’s not that important overall.
It’s nice to hear that your group has very good chemistry but I would have liked to know in what way the chemistry in your group works well to improve your workflow.
I liked that you went more in depth into what Agile development means for the workflow in your group and even gave an example of how it can make development more flexible. The quote was also very fitting and helped to prove your point.
The comparison between Scrum and waterfall, as well as the reason Scrum is usually picked for game development, was also interesting, especially for people who might not be familiar with the definition for them or the difference between them.
Overall your post was at some points hard to follow, perhaps because of, like your bad programming habit, sometimes you don’t really finish your thought and start writing about something else. Just a slight structuring problem that would make it a tad bit easier to read. Other than that it was very interesting to hear your point of view and I really enjoyed reading it.
Keep up the good work and I’m looking forward to seeing your game develop!
//Fredrik Henriksen Lövlie (frhe6405)
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Hello Natasha, as a reader I got a clear picture what how scrum have helped you both as a game designer, programmer and how it has helped your group. It is fascinating to be able to read about Scrum in depth, and the effect of what scrum has had in examples the group has had. What the blog mentioned about how Scrum has helpt the group to be a better group is very interesting and relatable.
It is also interesting to read how the group has solved how to work in Scrum as it is a learning experience for the reader also. The comparison between Scrum and waterfall was fascinating. It was nice to read that you had experience with Waterfall so we could get a more detailed description of why Scrum is better.
Overall this post is excellent and learning experience for everybody that was reading it. The only thing I noticed was that the structure of the text was a bit messy but otherwise a magnificent blog.
// Adam Olsson 97 (adol2655)
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