Planning for impact
Game development is as much strategy as it is creativity. Long term planning combines the needs of the team, the project and business goals. Managers must be able to engage with leadership early and often to establish long term goals to work back from when planning. In this post we will cover a few strategies for establishing UX as a player at the grand table of game development.
Establish clear realistic requirements
Establish clear business and creative requirements. This is sometimes referred to as a Statement Of Work (SOW). Easier said than done in this line of work. Often times the goal post in video games is moving and ever-changing. The market changes, the game is altered for fun, a first party partner wishes to add a platform; all important and possible changes, but with practice you will want to establish the core game/project/milestone needs and work outwards from there to establish the game/business pillars most important to the project.
Who is this for?
What will we deliver?
What platforms are targeted?
What is the market like?
What regions are targeted?
What capabilities do we expect (VO, branching, complex animation)?
Plan with Empathy
Just because project/studio leaders say we have to do it all doesn’t mean we can do it all. You must plan with your team’s well being and mental capacity in mind. It is the job of the Lead/manager to negotiate on their teams behalf and with their well-being in mind.
You can only have three outcomes for an unreasonable ask. You either get more time, fewer requirements, or you cut something. Crunching should not be a viable option for a team who plans well. It is better and creates more effective solutions if you target the most important items and compromise where you must Long-term. This is a more-viable option in today’s industry landscape where games rarely are left as they were when launched like they would be in the 90’s-2000’s. Just because something is cut, doesn’t mean your project is worse. Often on my projects we like to say “cut for launch” instead. This implies that the item is still important to us and that it is important to the designer who wrote it up, but there are realistic constraints in play that we cannot avoid. It allows us to save these features or items for later and return to them to evaluate their new worth rather than leaving them on the floor. More often than not these same things come up again so having all of that previous effort will be extremely useful the second go around.
Stand up for your team. as a leader your job is as much about the subtle art of politics as it is about getting work completed. You are here for your team first, and the project second.
work Backwards to define scope
Once you have established clear goals and boundaries, you should work backwards from those needs and goals to establish the necessary objectives. Those objectives can then be broken down further with the aid of your team. Your goal should be to list all deliverables and establish proper acceptance criteria (AC). Early in development your AC won’t be very helpful or descriptive. After all game development is a moving target. The best you can do is plan with the knowledge you have and improve through iteration as you go.
Work with your team to estimate the effort involved in some of these things. You don’t need days or hours, but you should be able to get sprints or release timelines from your team. You can use these to compare with other teams in the next step.
negotiate sideways
One cannot plan effectively without understanding outside constraints and preferences. There is no use completing the TTS accessibility efforts if the TTS tech won’t be online for another 6 months. You have your goals and requirements, you have your breakdowns of scope. This is your time to shine as a Lead. Reach out to all involved (and possibly involved) stakeholders to establish constraints. This is a great time to lean on your producer. This is their superpower.
Speak with those leads and stakeholders and use the information gathered to negotiate a collective timeline for the development of the objectives. By working together you can establish priorities and possibly get something bumped sooner or use it as a chance to learn something new about the timelines and necessities of other teams. You can’t get the accessibility VO/TTS work in early if you don’t negotiate with the Audio, Narrative, Engineering groups. This is a great time to do that.
Planning is about Painting not stonework
You must always be adjusting your planning and long term work. Know what’s coming and adjust the teams workload and needs accordingly.
Be the guard for your team who is able to deal with the surprises and smooth them out. Your team should be trusted to act without undo disruption to do their best work. UX takes focus and curiosity, which can’t be achieved if you are pulled away from your task every two days. The lead should work with production to corral these requests and adjustments and create a reasonable runway for their team.
Be Human
We're all human here. we’re fallible and communicate in our own ways. Always approach conversations and planning with kindness and understanding. we are all hoping to reach the same goals. Often issues with the project result from misunderstanding or unknowns rather than incompetence or malicious behavior. Assume good intentions and we will all be better for it.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of this work is that it’s going to continue to evolve around the moving target that is your project.
