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Planning design work

In the games industry, it's usually the project manager who creates and enforces production schedules. To do that, a list of task and assets to produce is assembled based on the design documentation. These tasks are then paired with estimates that (in the best-case scenario) come from the people who will actually end up doing said tasks. If the project is highly inventive and/or staff members inexperienced, more senior employees might get involved in helping with the initial schedule.

Unfortunately, in the words of strategist Helmuth von Moltke, "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." First production schedules are likely to be very, very wrong. In the beginning, things will usually take longer than anticipated, and a lot of unknown problems, changes in direction, and missed tasks will emerge. Fortunately, as time goes on, your team's experience with the product grows and your tools are likely to improve, making the creation of future game content much quicker than initially anticipated. Good development studios and publishers acknowledge that games are very hard to plan accurately, and are prepared to be reasonably flexible.

In Agile game development, you're likely to encounter different levels of detail when it comes to planning and task preparation. Long-term plans tend to be loose and based on rough estimations; the game might have a shipping date from the beginning, but it's very unlikely to be the actual one. Mid-term plans (next few months), usually focus on clear goals that the team is striving to achieve for example: getting the first level playable, finishing the character customization system, testing network code. Short-term plans (next two sprints, that is, development cycles) are the most detailed and least likely to change, as they contain lists of detailed tasks, order by priority, which is either worked on right now or will be assessed for inclusion in the next development cycle.

No matter how fragile and changeable, plans need to be made right before the game can enter the production period. As a representative (or at least a valued member) of the design team, you're likely to be involved in the process. While deliverable tasks for artists (such as character models, animations, environments, and so on) are relatively easy to put into numbers and estimate, design tasks tend to be much more elusive. We'll cover some tips that might help you in tackling this problem!

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