Scrum and Agile for Video Game Development

1. Scrum for Video Game
Development
Presented by
Clinton Keith

2. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Clinton Keith
Ve t e r a n V i d e o G a m e D e v e l o p e r w i t h
o ver 20 years of professional game
development exper ience
Intro duce d the Vi deo Game
Indu str y to Ag ile, Scrum and Lean
Tr a i n e d a n d c o a c h e d at o v e r 8 0
s tu d ios since 2008
Author of “Agile Game Development
with Scrum

3. What is agile?
• It’s a method for developing products using short
iterations
• Each iteration is like a short project in itself
• Uses “inspect and adapt” practices to adjust the
project plan
• It focuses on adding features in a value prioritized
way, rather than a resource prioritized way
• It’s a mindset for how to address uncertainty and
change and how to respond to how fun your
features are (or not)
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

4. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Why Apply Agile
to Video Game
Development?

5. Waterfall
Atari/Nintendo
Alpha/Beta
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Design
E3 Demo
Preproduction
Production
Find the Fun First
• The video game industry has a long history of
iterating to find the fun
• As costs and team sizes grew, we focused more on
ship dates and budgets
• As a result, quality is compromised and risks aren’t
explored
% of fun found in
in development

6. The Agile Manifesto (for game development)
We are uncovering better ways of developing games by doing it and
helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:
Individuals and
interactions Process and Tools
Working game
Publisher/Stakeholder
collaboration
Responding to
change
Design
documentation
Fixed scope, schedule
and budgets
Following a plan
over
over
over
over
That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

7. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Scrum
Overview

8. What is Scrum?
• A framework to enable rapid and iterative
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
development
• A focus on not only improving our games, but the
methods we use to make them and the
environment we make them in
• Produces a demonstrable working & improved
game every one to three weeks
• Team commitment and result oriented
• Not a silver bullet
• Has a long history of success on a wide variety of
projects, including video game development

9. Scrum for Video Games
“Scrum facilitates feature iteration, allowing
teams to deliver polished, tuned and integrated
features which can be used to test the creative
quality of the game throughout its
development, allowing the team to incorporate
audience feedback as early as possible in the
development process.”
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Chris Ulm
Chief Designer
High Moon Studios

10. © 2009-2014 Clinton Keith
Scrum Daily
Product
backlog
Scrum
Sprint
planning Sprint
review
Sprint
backlog
Improved
Game
Sprint
goal
Jump
Swim
Fly
Crouch
Sprint
1-­‐3
week
Time-­‐box
Sprint
Retrospective

11. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
The Scrum Team
Product
Owner
Scrum
Master
Developers

12. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Product Owner Duties
•Maintains the product backlog
•Continuous prioritization and
refinement
•Conveys a shared vision
•Represents the customers and
shareholders
•Participates in all Scrum meetings
•Accepts or rejects sprint results

13. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
The ScrumMaster Duties
•Remove impediments
•Protects the team
•Ensures all Scrum artifacts exist
•Facilitates Scrum meetings
•Support and guide the PO role
•Coaches & guides the team on
agile/Scrum principles

14. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
The Team Duties
•Organized around release goals
•Plans the sprint backlog
•Commits to sprint goal with Product Owner
•Does everything necessary to achieve sprint goal
•Removes most impediments
•Manages the sprint backlog
•Attends all sprint meetings

15. Why do this?
• Fun (quality) can’t be fully planned & scheduled
• We have to “find it”
• Creative knowledge workers do best when:
• They have some ownership of the work
• They are learning & growing as crafts-people
• Not assembly-line workers
• They are part of a team with good chemistry
• They are not overwhelmed to the point of
compromising quality
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

16. The Adoption Roadmap
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Journeyman
• 12-24 months
• Faster integrations
• Better testing
• Release planning
Apprentice
• 3-12 months
• Daily Scrums
• Iterations
• Roles
Master
• Never ends
• Self organization
• 100% customization
Continuous improvement
Definition
of
Done
Trust &
Ownership

17. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
The
Pro d u ct
Back log

18. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Product backlog
• The requirements
• A list of all desired work on
the project
• Ideally expressed such that
each item has value to the
users or customers of the
product
• Prioritized by the product
owner
• Reprioritized at the start of
This is the each sprint
product backlog

19. High
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Sprint
Milestone
Priority
Low
Future
Releases
Value
Cost
Risk
Knowledge
The Product Backlog Iceberg
Product
Owner

20. One or more sentences in the everyday
language of the end user that captures
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
User Stories
what the user wants
Use this template
“As a <user role>,
I want <goal>
so that <reason>.”

21. Some sample user stories
As a player I want punches,
reactions and blocks
synchronized, so that
fighting looks natural and
realistic
As a player I want to know
which of my friends are
playing this game
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
As a content creator, I
want the asset validation
process to recompile
scripts so that I know if
some of them reference
deleted assets.

22. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Sprints

23. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Sprints
• Scrum projects make progress
in a series of sprints
• During the sprint, the team
does
• Animation
• Coding
• Testing
• Level design
• and so on
• After each sprint, game can be
played / demoed
This is the
sprint

24. Always deliver
• You must have a potentially demoable /
playable game at the end of each sprint
• Do not miss the end of the sprint
• The deadline is sacred
• Functionality may vary
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

25. Team commitment
• The team picks the work they’ll do in a sprint
• Which items
• How many
• The team commits to the product owner to
complete what they select
• It’s a team commitment, not a set of individual
commitments
• Has authority to do whatever is needed to
meet this commitment
• Demonstrates to the product owner the
completed work at the sprint review
© 2003–2011 Clinton Keith

26. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Scrum meetings
Sprint Retrospective
Daily Scrums
Sprint Review Meeting
Sprint Planning Meeting
Sprint Planning Meeting
• Body Text with a bullet and

27. A Typical 2- Week Sprint
Calendar/Cadence
M T W T F
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
+1
Sprint
planning
Sprint review
and
retrospective
Sprint
planning

28. Sprint Planning Meeting
• Team selects items from the product backlog they can
commit to completing
• Sprint backlog is created
• Tasks are identified and each is estimated (1-16 hours)
• Collaboratively, not done alone by the ScrumMaster
• Very high-level design is considered
As a player I want
punches, reactions and
blocks synchronized,
so that fighting looks
natural and realistic
Create close punch animations
(12 hours)
Tune attack percentage in AI (4)
Remap controls so attacks are on
free buttons (4)
Tune block and reaction
animations to be same length (2)
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

29. Managing the sprint backlog
• Individuals sign up for work of their own choosing
• Work is never assigned
• Estimated work remaining is updated daily
• Any team member can add, delete or change the sprint
backlog
• Work for the sprint emerges
• If work is unclear, define a sprint backlog item with a larger
© 2003–2011 Clinton Keith
amount of time
• Break it down later
• Update work remaining as either
• More is known
• Items are worked on

30. © 2003–2011 Clinton Keith
A sprint backlog
Tasks
Create close punch
animations for attackers
Create close punch
animations for responders
Adjust fight navigation
Fix camera bouncing off
walls
Polish audio
Mon
8
16
8
12
8
Tues
4
12
16
0
8
Wed Thur
8
4
0
0
8
4
Fri
0
4
10
0
16
0
New task!
0
0
8
8
Tune attack percentage in
AI 8 8
8
0 More time?!
Crunch?

31. Task Boards Contain the Sprint Backlog
Test the...
MC 8
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Story To Do
As a user, I...
8 points
In
Process
To
Verify Done
Code the...
9
Code the...
2
Test the...
8
As a user, I...
5 points
Code the...
8
Code the...
C o d e t h e4...
6
Code the...
4
Test the...
8
Code the...
8
Code the...
MC 4
Test the...
SC 8
Code the...
DC 8
Test the...
SC 8
Code the...
LC 8
Test the...
SC 4
Test the...
8
Code the...
8
Test the...
4
Test the...
8

32. Example Task Board
Burndown Chart © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

33. Burndown charts
• A common method of tracking progress
• A burndown chart shows how much work is
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
left as of various dates
1,000
800
600
400
200
0
4/29/02
5/6/02
5/13/02
5/20/02
5/24/02

34. Everyone answers 3 questions
1
What did you do yesterday?
What will you do today?
2
Is anything in your way?
3
• These are not status for the ScrumMaster
• They are commitments in front of peers

35. The Sprint Review
• Team presents what it accomplished during
the sprint
• Typically takes the form of a demo of new
features or underlying architecture
• Informal
• 2-hour prep time rule
• No slides
• Whole team participates
• Invite the world
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

36. Sprint Retrospective
• Periodically take a look at what is and is not
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
working
• Typically 15–30 minutes
• Done after every sprint
• Whole team participates
• ScrumMaster
• Product owner
• Team
• Possibly customers and others

37. Start / Stop / Continue
• Whole team gathers and discusses what they’d
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
like to:
Start doing
Stop doing
Continue doing

38. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Releases - Definition
Sprint 1
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Sprint 4
Sprint 5
Sprint 6 Release
Sprint 7
Sprint 8
Sprint 9
Sprint 10
Sprint 11
Sprint 12
Release

39. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Long-Term
Planning

40. Release planning on long projects
• On a multi-year game, break the total project into a
series of shorter interim internal “releases”
• Three months is a good horizon
• For each release, establish one or a few BHAGs (Big
Hairy Audacious Goals)
• “Epic” user stories work well for this, such as:
• As a player I want online multiplayer so I can connect to the
internet and play against other players online.
• As a player I want to engage enemies in hand-to-hand combat.
• As a player I want to drive a car around the city.
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

41. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
A likely sequence
Sprint 1
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Sprint 4
Sprint 5
Sprint 6
Release 1 Sprint 7
Hardening Sprint
Sprint 8
Sprint 9
Sprint 10
Sprint 11
Hardening Sprint
Release 2

42. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Managing Releases
• Scope, schedule and cost
are managed by frequently
measuring true progress
against the plan.
• True progress is based on
scope delivered with
quality
• The plan has to
reconciled with the
emergence of what we
learn is making the game
great.

43. Agile is Better at Hitting Fixed Dates
• Agile addresses value, cost, risk and quality up front
• As opposed to addressing those aspects at the end of a project
and having the answers delay or compromise the game.
• Agile embraces empirical process control
• Frequent metrics inform stakeholders early on cost, schedule
and scope progress against targets, which help them make timely
decisions.
"Implementation of a true Agile Scrum has greatly transformed the teams to
become much more predictable than we ever had been prior. With our fixed
dates, this predictability has been invaluable as it has greatly helped with
proper scoping and priority"
- Brian Graham, Director of Product Development, EA, Madden NFL 2006 -
2009
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

44. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Scaling Scrum

45. Scalability
• Most games require more than one Scrum team to build.
• Scrum is designed to be scaled
• Scalability comes from teams of teams
• Factors in scaling
• Logical division of work
• Team size
• Team dispersion
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

46. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Practices for Scaling
• Scrum-of-Scrum Meeting
• Representatives from each team meet on a regular
basis to address dependencies and inter-team
issues.
• Aligning Sprint dates
• Sharing a common backlog
• Using a hierarchy of Product Owners

47. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Scrum of scrums

48. Running the scrum of scrums
Attendees
• Each team sends an individual contributor
• If four or fewer teams, it’s OK to send a
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
ScrumMaster also
• Rotate based on whose skills are needed most
Frequency
• Some say daily
• I usually do these MWF or TuTh
• These are problem-solving meetings
• Not time-boxed to 15 minutes
Agenda
• Everyone answers four questions
• Attendees discuss the product backlog
for the scrum of scrums

49. Share start and end dates
• Don’t stagger sprints like this:
Team 3 Team 3
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
Team 1 Team 1
Team 2 Team 2
• Synchronize sprint starts instead
Team 1 Team 1
Team 2 Team 2
Team 3 Team 3
Start Finish Start Finish

50. Use a Shared Product Backlog
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
View
Online
View
Single player

51. A hierarchy of product owners
Visionaries for
global/local products
All members of
their teams
Game PO works with
feature/functional
product owners to
establish vision and
priorities for their
teams

52. Augment with Community of Practice Teams
• Beyond a certain team size, augment the team structure
with virtual teams
• Programming team
• Audio team
• AI team
• Informal or semi-formal at best
• Meet periodically
• Discuss and resolve issues related to their specialty
• e.g how to solve common AI problems
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

53. Programmers
Animators
Testers
Audio engineers
ScrumMasters
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

54. Reference Material
Essential books for agile practitioners:
Agile Game Development with Scrum, Clinton Keith
Agile Estimating and Planning, Mike Cohn
User Stories Applied, Mike Cohn
Succeeding with Agile, Mike Cohn
Lean from the Trenches, Henrick Kniberg
Agile Project Management with Scrum, Ken Schwaber
Agile Retrospectives, Ester Derby & Diana Larsen
Innovation Games, Luke Hohmann
Websites:
www.clintonkeith.com - My website, which contains numerous resources for applying Scrum
and agile to video game development.
agileatlas.org - The Agile Atlas - This website, supported by the Scrum Alliance, contains the
definition of Scrum taught by SA trainers and is the basis for the CSM exam.
www.scrumalliance.org - The Scrum Alliance - The non-profit organization that owns the
Scrum certifications.
www.mountaingoatsoftware.com - Mike Cohn’s website, which contains numerous resources
for applying Scrum and agile practices.
© 2008–2014 Clinton Keith

55. © 2008–2014 Clinton Keith
My contact info
Clinton Keith
Clint@ClintonKeith.com
www.ClintonKeith.com