[game_edu] SCRUM in Game Development

[Ian Schreiber]

Hi Nic,

I will say that my experience with Scrum in industry was highly positive. 
Biggest benefit for us was that we had constantly shippable code -- you've got 
to clean up your mess of bugs while it's still fresh in your mind. Compare to a 
situation where you build an unstable foundation and then pile a bunch of 
additional code on top, which just tends to occlude and obscure bugs and 
increase technical risk down the road. Also, it means you can basically fit the 
project to any timeline; if the ship date changes, that just means more or fewer 
sprints, but you always have something that works that's ready to ship at any 
time.

I've not used Scrum or Agile in the classroom per se,  but that is mainly 
because a typical class project doesn't last much  longer than a sprint, so I 
suppose you could say that almost all class projects are "agile" due to their 
scope, with perhaps the  exception of a year-long capstone (and in that case, do 
you want to  focus on the production methodology at the possible expense of 
removing  focus from the project itself?).

If you want to do an Agile Game Dev class, there's a few things to consider. Do 
you want to build in some kind of professional certification, or at least 
preparation for students to certify themselves after the class is over 
("Certified Scrum Master" on a student business card would probably get some 
attention)? Have students worked on projects with other methodologies 
(waterfall, etc.) prior to taking the Agile class, so they can compare the 
methodologies and better understand the pros and cons of various methodologies? 
Is the purpose of the course to show students the "right" way to develop 
software, or to expose them to several "potentially right" ways of doing things, 
or is it just to get them used to the production models used in industry so they 
don't sound like n00bs during the interview? No right or wrong answers here, but 
they do affect what the final class would look like.

One thing I've seen used successfully in one project-based class is giving 
student teams a choice of methodology, "traditional" or "agile". This lets the 
students research and weigh the various methodologies against one another, and 
they can report on the effectiveness of their chosen approach at a post-mortem 
at the end of the class (this also lets them share their experiences with other 
student groups that chose different approaches).

- Ian




________________________________
From: Nic Colley <Nic.Colley at cpcc.edu>
To: IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>; Games Research Network 
<GAMESNETWORK at uta.fi>
Sent: Sat, January 8, 2011 1:48:24 PM
Subject: [game_edu] SCRUM in Game Development

Happy New Year All!

What lessons have you learned while using SCRUM and any best practices? 

I ask this as I am currently building a class "Agile Game Development". In this 
class I will be focusing on SCRUM with projects while talking about other 
development practices. I am able to pull from my experiences with SCRUM, but to 
better serve the students, I thought I should ask the community on their 
experiences.

Thanks,
Nic Colley
Faculty, Simulation & Game Development
Nic.Colley at cpcc.edu
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