Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat

by Clinton Keith

In Agile Game Development , Clinton Keith offered game development team members the first complete blueprint for leveraging the power of Scrum and Agile methods to deliver games more efficiently, rapidly, and cost-effectively; create games that offer more entertainment value; and make life more fulfilling for every development team member. Now, reflecting his unsurpassed experience helping more than 150 game development studios succeed, Keith has thoroughly revamped his classic guide for today’s radically transformed industry. The only Certified Scrum Trainer to help build 20 AAA-level games, Keith is singularly well-placed to help game developers solve the problems they actually face. 


Clinton Keith

Clinton Keith

Clinton Keith has 20 years of product development experience, including defense-related projects and cutting-edge technology research, including work on the F-22 fighter. He has 15 years of experience in video game development and has led technology efforts on the latest platforms. He introduced the video game development industry to Scrum and Agile in 2003, when game projects had grown to exceed $20 million budgets and 100+ team members. He has been an independent certified Scrum trainer and Agile coach since early 2008, and is a nationally recognized leader, communicator, and innovator.

Table of Contents

Part I: The Problem and the Solution  

Chapter 1: The Crisis Facing Game Development     

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter     
  2. A Brief History of Game Development     
  3. The Crisis     
  4.   What Good Looks Like    
  5. Summary    
  6. Additional Reading    

Chapter 2: Agile and Lean Development  

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter 
  2. What Is Agile?    
  3. What Is Lean?    
  4. Why Game Development Is Hard    
  5. Applying Both Agile and Lean    
  6. Why Use Agile and Lean for Game Development?    
  7. What an Agile Project Looks Like    
  8. The Challenge of Agile and Lean    
  9. What Good Looks Like    
  10. Summary    
  11. Additional Reading    

Part II: Scrum and Kanban    

Chapter 3: Scrum   

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. The History of Scrum    
  3. Product Backlog, Sprints, and Releases    
  4. Scrum Roles    
  5. Customers and Stakeholders    
  6. Chickens and Pigs    
  7. Scaling Scrum    
  8. What Good Looks Like    
  9. Summary    
  10. Additional Reading    

Chapter 4: Sprints    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. The Big Picture    
  3. Planning    
  4. Tracking Progress    
  5. The Daily Scrum Meeting    
  6. Sprint Reviews    
  7. Retrospectives    
  8. Sprint Challenges    
  9. What Good Looks Like    
  10. Summary    
  11. Additional Reading    

Chapter 5: Great Teams    

  1. What Are Great Teams?    
  2. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  3. An Agile Approach to Teams    
  4.  What Good Looks Like    
  5. Summary    
  6. Additional Reading    

Chapter 6: Kanban    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. What Is Kanban?    
  3. Improving the Workflow    
  4. The Difference with Scrum    
  5. What Good Looks Like    
  6. Summary    
  7. Additional Reading    

Chapter 7: The Product Backlog    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. A Fateful Meeting    
  3. Why Design Documents Fail    
  4. The Product Backlog    
  5. Creating the Product Backlog    
  6. Managing the Product Backlog    
  7. Defining “Done”    
  8. Challenges    

Dysfunctional Product Ownership    

  1. What Good Looks Like    
  2. Summary    
  3. Additional Reading    

Part III: Agile Game Development    

Chapter 8: User Stories    

  1. Speaking Different Languages    
  2. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  3. What Are User Stories?    
  4. Levels of Detail    
  5. Acceptance Criteria    
  6. Using Index Cards for User Stories    
  7. INVEST in User Stories    
  8. User Roles    
  9. Collecting Stories    
  10. Splitting Stories    
  11. Advantages of User Stories    
  12. What Good Looks Like    
  13. Summary    
  14. Additional Reading    

Chapter 9: Agile Release Planning    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. What Is Release Planning?    
  3. Estimating Feature Size    
  4. Release Planning with Story Points    
  5. What Good Looks Like    
  6. Summary    
  7. Additional Reading    

Chapter 10: Video Game Project Management    

  1. Midnight Club Story    
  2. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  3. Minimum Viable Game     
  4. Contracts    
  5. Hitting Fixed Ship Dates    
  6. Managing Risk    
  7. The Need for Stages    
  8. The Development Stages    
  9. Mixing the Stages    
  10. Managing Stages with Releases    
  11. Lean Production    
  12. What Good Looks Like    
  13. Summary     
  14. Additional Reading   

Chapter 11: Faster Iterations    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Where Does Iteration Overhead Come From?    
  3. Measuring and Displaying Iteration Time    
  4. Personal and Build Iteration    
  5. What Good Looks Like    
  6. Summary    
  7. Additional Reading    

Part IV: Agile Disciplines    

Chapter 12: Agile Technology    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. The Problems    
  3. An Agile Approach    
  4. What Good Looks Like    
  5. Summary    
  6. Additional Reading    

Chapter 13: Agile Art and Audio    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Concerns About Agile    
  3. Art Leadership    
  4. Art on a Cross-Discipline Team    
  5. What Good Looks Like    
  6. Summary    
  7. Additional Reading    

Chapter 14: Agile Design    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Designing with Scrum    
  3. What Good Looks Like    
  4. Summary    
  5. Additional Reading    

Chapter 15: Agile QA and Production    

  1. Agile QA    
  2. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  3. The Problem with QA    
  4. Most QA Is Just QC    
  5. Agile Testing Is Not a Phase    
  6. The Role of QA on an Agile Game Team    
  7. Agile Production    
  8. What Good Looks Like    
  9. Summary    
  10. Additional Reading    

Part V: Getting Started    

Chapter 16: The Myths and Challenges of Scrum    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Silver Bullet Myths    
  3. Scrum Challenges    
  4. What Good Looks Like    
  5. Summary    
  6. Additional Reading    

Chapter 17: Working with Stakeholders    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Who Are the Stakeholders?    
  3. The Challenges    
  4. Focus Comes Too Late    
  5. Milestone Payments and Collaboration    
  6. Limited Iteration    
  7. First-Party Problems    
  8. Portfolios Drive Dates    
  9. Building Trust, Allaying Fear    
  10. The Fears    
  11. Understanding Agile    
  12. Publisher-Side Product Owners    
  13. Meeting Project Challenges Early    
  14. Managing the Production Plan    
  15. Allaying the Fears    
  16. Agile Contracts    
  17. Iterating Against a Plan    
  18. Fixed Ship Dates    
  19. Agile Pre-Production    
  20. The Stage-Gate Model    
  21. What Good Looks Like    
  22. Summary    
  23. Additional Reading    

Chapter 18: Team Transformations    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. The Three Stages of Team Transformation    
  3. What Good Looks Like    
  4. Summary    
  5. Additional Reading    

Part VI: Growing Beyond    

Chapter 19: Coaching Teams for Greatness    

  1. What Is a “Great Team”?    
  2. Why Coaching?    
  3. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  4. Coaching Skills    
  5. Coaching Teams to Higher Performance    
  6. Team Maturity Models    
  7. Coaching Tools and Practices    
  8. What Good Looks Like    
  9. Summary    
  10. Additional Reading    

Chapter 20: Self-Organization and Leadership    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Self-Organization    
  3. Leadership    
  4. Systems Thinking    
  5. Intrinsic Motivation    
  6. Flow    
  7. Studio Coaches    
  8. Adoption Strategies    
  9. What Good Looks Like    
  10. Summary    
  11. Additional Reading    

Chapter 21: Scaling Agile Game Teams    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Challenges to Scaling    
  3. Should You Scale Up?    
  4. Scaling the Wrong Process    
  5. The MAGE Framework    
  6. The Product Backlog    
  7. Team Organization    
  8. Product Ownership    
  9. Additional Roles    
  10. Releases    
  11. Sprints    
  12. Managing Dependencies    
  13. Distributed and Dispersed Development    
  14. What Good Looks Like    
  15. Summary    
  16. Additional Reading    

Chapter 22: Live Game Development    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Games As a Service    
  3. Why Agility for Live Games?    
  4. DevOps and Lean Startup    
  5. Feedback Loops    
  6. Part One: Plan    
  7. Part Two: Develop    
  8. Part Three: Deploy and Support    
  9. Part Four: Measure and Learn    
  10. What Good Looks Like    
  11. Summary    
  12. Additional Reading    

Chapter 23: There Are No “Best” Practices    

  1. The Solutions in This Chapter    
  2. Visualizing Your Work    
  3. Developing for New Platforms    
  4. Agile and Indie Game Development
  5. What Good Looks Like    
  6. Summary    
  7. Additional Reading    

Conclusion    

Index