Letters From Circe's Island: Dev Log #4

Letters from Circe's Island #4 | Production Management and Scope by Victoria Farrell

While it may not be the most glamorous part of game development, product and scope management are essential to the development of any project and must be open to change. As the product manager I spend a large portion of my time on Aiaia organizing sprints and making sure that the most important items in the games production backlog are assigned first. One thing that I've been forced to learn in this role is that a scrum, while helpful and necessary to plan in advance, will almost always change. Whether it is to adapt to an adjusted scope or to account for changes in the team, it is important not to be married to the first scrum.

Scope Changes

At the conception of Aiaia's production our scope had included 4 levels that took place over a span of 8 in-game days. This scope was established under the belief that our team would be larger than it eventually has become. The second time the scope was decreased we condensed the game to 3 levels in the hopes that it would allow the team to spend more time on polishing the essentials needed for a vertical slice capable of capturing the concept of Aiaia as a game while still being able to give players more game. Due to an unforeseen series of events, we were forced yet again to lower our scope to what it is now, a single level taking place over 2 in game days. While this decrease in scope was not ideal, it will allow us to release a polished tutorial level and a first game loop that will set the tone for the eventual full game. 

Deciding on the Essentials

A large part of product management is deciding what the essentials of the project are and prioritizing them over other aspects. While it is tempting to get caught up in what we want to add to the project, we have to always be aware of what is really needed, otherwise we risk displaying an unfinished product. While some things, such as phantom boars, are easier to identify as wants to be addressed in future iterations, others can be less easy to spot when you are in the development of a project. It is easy to become blinded by the idealized version of the project we imagine when working on a team of passionate and skilled individuals but if we don't learn to step outside of the vision and consider the timeline we are ultimately going to overwork and overload the team. 

Assigning Tasks and Balancing Workloads

In the product management role it is my responsibility to decide what each person should be working on for each sprint. This means I must consider how much time each task will take along with the priority of said task to keep the product on track without burning out the team. While product management is not my only role on the team, it is one I take very seriously and that I know is essential to mitigating stress and keeping everything going smoothly. I am blessed with an incredibly talented team of individuals on Team Circe who I can trust to deliver on tasks in a timely manner while also communicating when things may need to be split up and for that I am very thankful.