Customer-Provider Philosophy Applied Within the Agile TeamPresented by Thiéry AdamProducer at Ludia

Montreal International Game SummitNovember 1st 2011

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Agenda

A Bit of Context – Who am I & what is Ludia?

The Scrum Challenge– Initial adaption reactions

Iteration Makes Perfect – Setting up the next projects

Take it away – Key bullet points to bring home

1

2

5

3

4

Hindsight Epiphanies – What we now realize

1h35

• Education:• College: Comics (DEC)• Undergraduate: Film Animation (BFA)• Graduate: Project Management (MGP)

1. A Bit of ContextWho am I?

• Worked: • For: Ubisoft, Ludia• With: very various distribution,

development & licensing partners.

• Certification: • Project Management Professional (PMP)• Certified Scrum Master (CSM)

• Ludia creates and distributes cross-platform interactive entertainment with mass consumer appeal.

1. A Bit of ContextWhat is Ludia?

• Ludia usually acquires television brand rights and finances their game adaptation.

• Waterfall Gantt Charts for the entire project

• Traditional milestone definitions• Buffer periods per milestone.

1. A Bit of ContextLudia Development Pre-Agile

• Problems: • Heavy design & planning up-front.• Poor schedule control & prediction,

affecting cost & quality.

• Producers tour the team to update the schedule to reflect time actually spent on tasks.

Agenda

A Bit of Context – Who am I & what is Ludia?

The Scrum Challenge– Initial adaption reactions

Iteration Makes Perfect – Setting up the next projects

Take it away – Key bullet points to bring home

1

2

5

3

4

Hindsight Epiphanies – What we now realize

1h40

• Core agile values (from the manifesto):

• Individuals & interactions over processes and tools.

• Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Responding to change over following a plan.

2. The Scrum ChallengeSo we decided to go from semi-agile to formally trained agile.

• ... Kind of sounds like hippie philosophy!

2. The Scrum ChallengeScrum is the methodology we investigated to become agile.

• ... Kind of sounds like a cult pitch!

• Scrum is an agile framework:• Organize the project into 2-4 week sprints• Each sprint executes a chosen portion of the

product backlog• Review “shippable” software with customer

every sprint• Scrum enthusiasm required:

• Amazing benefits promised to those who fully embrace the system

• “10x the value produced vs. waterfall!“ • Half-heartedness is the reason Scrum fails.

2. The Scrum ChallengeWe were game, but we had concerns.

• This is why you need your development head to also go to the training, otherwise there may be too much adoption resistance!

• Scrum would allow us to create products of a higher quality, but of a smaller scope.

• Scrum will only work if the team is mature enough to self-organize.

• No one knows what the finished product will be, as we decide only one sprint at a time.

Agenda

A Bit of Context – Who am I & what is Ludia?

The Scrum Challenge – Initial adaption reactions

Iteration Makes Perfect – Setting up the next projects

Take it away – Key bullet points to bring home

1

2

5

3

4

Hindsight Epiphanies – What we now realize

1h45

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (1/4): Sprints vs. Awareness

• Immediate-only details: • Create a clear objective to every sprint, • Only go into details with the team & editorial regarding that immediate

objective.

• Sprints allocate importance to intermediate objectives.

• In an ideal world, the team would be able to keep the big picture and the details in mind all at once.

• In reality, immediate gets confused for important.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (1/4): Sprints vs. Awareness (example)

• Result: • It took a long time before everyone had a unified game vision.• Many features thought necessary ended up cut.

• Too much time was spent on lower priorities, both with the team and editorial.

• American Idol Star Experience was an ambitious project, both in scope and innovation.• We had the team working on too

many features at once.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (2/4): Overpolish vs. Timeboxing

• Keep it moving: • The team will find the best quality per hour when

they have a clear time limit. • The product owner must keep saying “where can we

best spend our time right now?”

• Uneven polish will make the less polished areas look buggy by contrast!

• Polishing in priority order ensures a high level of quality on core features.

• Unfortunately, a scope probably has to contain more than just the core.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (2/4): Overpolish vs. Timeboxing (example)

• In the end result, players focus more on those flaws than all the incredible work that went into the best features.

• … but we ran out of time when it came to speech bubbles and lip synch!

• In Family Feud 2012, we wanted high energy full cinematography.• A lot of effort went into the

animation, camera & render.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (3/4): Commitment vs. External Reviews

• High level commitments: • Promise the “what”, to commit the team to delivering value.• Let the team determine “how” and they will figure out the best value per

effort.

• Internal reviews should be done from the promise’s intention, without limiting its interpretation.

• Within a team, we tend to prefer slipping deliveries dates to compromising vision.

• With a delivery promised to an external party, we try harder to find the best vision for the date.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (3/4): Commitment vs. External Reviews (example)

• By keeping in mind that deliveries will be evaluated by people outside the project, figuring quality on time is a constant.

• For example, one sprint is called “interacting with dinosaurs” and another “update to visual target”.

• For our upcoming Jurassic Park social game, we committed to a calendar of sprint objectives.• Sprint objectives describe

broadly what we will present every two weeks.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (4/4): Value vs. Certainty

• Plan to deliver maximized certainty: • List everyone’s worries and sort them by gravity. • Plan the sprints in a way to reduce as much uncertainty per effort.

• Lack of confidence in the vision, can become very costly as project direction waivers.

• Agile describes working software as the measure of value delivered.

• Creative video games have more uncertainty than the traditional software development project.

3. Hindsight EpiphaniesOh, now we get it (4/4): Value vs. Certainty (example)

• A confident partner will help find opportunities and provide constructive criticism that lines up better with production.

• Cut-scenes rather than gameplay were the early deliveries, building confidence and excitement.

• The Bachelor The Videogame was the first collaboration between Warner Bros. and Ludia• Their main concerns were

brand fidelity and game tone.

Agenda

A Bit of Context – Who am I & what is Ludia?

The Scrum Challenge – Initial adaption reactions

Iteration Makes Perfect – Setting up the next projects

Take it away – Key bullet points to bring home

1

2

5

3

4

Hindsight Epiphanies – What we now realize

2h00

4. Iteration Makes PerfectSo what are Ludia’s current best practices?

• Producers convene every week and share stories from any project.

• Regular sharing of problems encountered and evolving team methodologies.

• Sprint, milestone and project end postmortems ensure team members also take the time to reflect formally.

• Always be ready to challenge and adapt according to each team and project context.

4. Iteration Makes Perfect(1/5) Identifying the project context

• Because value is too often subjective, you need an external authority to serve as an objective target for the team.

• You need an external client (editorial, licensor, distributor, etc.).

• This client needs to be fully detached, so they can evaluate results without the influence of context.

• You need to make the client appear credible and interested at every sprint.

4. Iteration Makes Perfect(2/5) Identifying value

• Identify client and team uncertainties, and turn them into sprint objectives.

• Project confidence is the main client value to be generated.

• Identify the best way to address “just enough” those worries.

• From presentations to resource calendars, software is not necessarily the easiest way to generate confidence.

4. Iteration Makes Perfect(3/5) Generating momentum

• Avoid sequential sprints that work on the same elements. It tends to encourage slipping.

• Firm time boxes ensure the most value generation per effort.

• Limited time motivates the team to figure out the best “good enough” across more objectives.

• Every once in a while slip in polish sprints, where the top improvements on existing elements are selected, evening out the quality.

4. Iteration Makes Perfect(4/5) Keeping the “what” and the “how” separate on the board

Larger cardboards represent goals set by the P.O., based upon commitments with the client.

Smaller cardboards are the tasks that represent the team’s best plan to attain the desired result.

4. Iteration Makes Perfect(5/5) Identifying the team context

• Could be a structure of lead designer, artist or producer, so long as they are not judges of their own work.

• You need an internal client (i.e. the Product Owner).

• To ensure that the team does not slip to subjective value or lose perspective, only a P.O. can call a task done.

• “Done” is an evaluation of effort versus value. “Should we keep working on this or is our time better spent working on the next priority?”

Agenda

A Bit of Context – Who am I & what is Ludia?

The Scrum Challenge – Initial adaption reactions

Iteration Makes Perfect – Setting up the next projects

Take it away – Key bullet points to bring home

1

2

5

3

4

Hindsight Epiphanies – What we now realize

2h10

5. Take it awaySince we tend to lose a vision in the details…

3. Carry the client perspective into the team.2. It’s all about finding an objective value reference.

The top three things to remember are:1. Scrum is a tool to work with human characteristics.

Any questions?

Thank you!