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Inspired By

David Jaffe, the outspoken creator of the God of War and Twisted Metal franchises, but more importantly (at least in my opinion) Calling All Cars for PSN (PlayStation Network). His decision to leave the major retail releases and focus on the expanding downloadable casual game market caught my eye and I've been following Eat, Sleep, Play's development since.

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Entries in Rapid Development (2)

Monday
31Aug2009

Spearheading new website for JU as Project Lead

DateMonday, August 31, 2009 at 12:04AM

The start of each semester at Jacksonville University brings with it a unique set of opportunities to develop exciting applications and projects.

This semester I'll be working on the Jacksonville University Graywater Irrigation Initiative as the head of art and website development. Now of course this isn't my usual caveat of video game flavored production but its good practice for FIEA. The teamates that are working with me for this project will be a traditional 2D artist and one other web developer.

And of course I'll be putting my project management skills to good use keeping the team on track to hit our milestones, I might give Microsoft Project a chance for this one and set everything up through that.

Anyone that is in the business of developing websites can tell you that a project of this scope could be completed in just under two weeks with the proper conditions. But since I will only have one hour each week to meet personally with the project staff it's going to be a slow, controlled development cycle instead of the rapid development you would see with a scrum approach.

So for my next scheduled meeting I'll be presenting a basic outline for what needs to be accomplished, by when, how they can be achieved, and potential pitfalls. I'll also get started on some preliminary UI discussion with the other development staff, although I imagine most of the UI will be designed once we've established a proper icon and theme for the project.

More on it as it happens!

AuthorDerrick Barra | CommentPost a Comment |
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Saturday
15Aug2009

The Mythical Man-Month: Chapters 1-4

DateSaturday, August 15, 2009 at 12:38AM

The Mythical Man-Month Book Cover

So I stopped by Borders last night with Katie and did what any good nerd would do, immediately high tail it to the computer reference section to check out the latest releases.

Initially I peered around for new production books or project management techniques, but my eyes got caught on one particular piece. I had read about The Mythical Man Month before in Rapid Development; where it received high praise for its groundbreaking observations (groundbreaking for 1986 anyways) in the software development industry.

The book is essentially a collection of essays written by Frederick P. Brooks Jr, in an effort to persuade developers into avoiding the same tar pits that sunk many development projects and studios. I'm pleased to say that Brooks work did not go unnoticed, as even the most basic programmer is being made aware of the ideas brought forth in The Mythical Man Month through Computer Science classes the world over.

 

Herein lies a summary of the chapters core ideas, for future reference

 

Ch.1- The Tar Pit

Small garage programming teams are great at programming systems, while professional development teams are best for developing products.

Ch.2- The Mythical Man-Month

Using the classic man-month system for estimating software development times is dangerous, because it assumes that the amount of manpower and months till completion are interchangeable.

Ch.3- The Surgical Team

Best and worst performances among programmers average at a ratio of 10:1, also a small ten man team that is highly trained to work as a single unit (referred to as a surgical team) can be scaled up in size to include multiple surgical teams using proper technique in order to lower the time to market, allowing the product to be feasible in the marketplace.

Ch.4- Aristocracy, Democracy, and System Design

Balance your product for ease of use and functionality. Also there needs to be checks and balances in your products feature creation, a democratic system of deciding feature sets that includes the whole team instead of an elite few leads to chaos and disorder. The object of development is for many cogs working together to bring about one vision. Lastly implementers (cogs) still have plenty of room for their creative expression and inventiveness to shine through in their daily work. Avoid the sirens song of having the many do the task that would be best given to the few because of the fear of implementers not showing off their creativity.

That's as far as I've gotten for now, I'll be posting more chapter summaries in the next few weeks as I read through them.

AuthorDerrick Barra | CommentPost a Comment |
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