[Download (PDF)]
The DADIU production is a one-month game production, where students from a wide range of Danish educational facilities gather to develop a game that meets certain pre-defined conditions. The goal of this report is to investigate how the core principles of agile development methods and the practices of Scrum, an agile methodology, can optimally be applied to this production environment.
The research is based on careful evaluation of central literature on the principles of agile and Scrum, while also highlighting the core aspects of games development, as most agile literature relates directly to field of software development. Through a shared analysis and discussion, the many different aspects of agile and Scrum are evaluated against the situational context of games development and more specifically the DADIU production. This shows how agile is useful in creating a motivated and engaged team, is able to better meet deadlines and deliver more value, can deliver a higher quality product by embracing change and focusing on working software, while also being highly adaptable to the actual situation. This leads to a formulated analogy between the role of an agile project manager and a gardener, who is confined to a role of merely creating optimal growth conditions for a plant, but can use a variety of tools to prevent unwanted growth and make the plant blossom as planned.
A clear strategy plan is then formulated based on these conclusions, determining a planned overview of the production, role definitions and work methods. This strategy plan is carried out during the one-month DADIU production and the experiences and reflections are stated in the post-mortem. During the production, the main issues with the implemented strategy related to the lack of a clear and defined game vision, delegation of responsibilities and the actual role of the Project Manager, while it also revealed the successes of an agile methodology in the task management system, its openness to change and its motivational effect.
Essentially the report concludes that great attention must be paid to the creation of an agile team within the context of the DADIU production, as it serves a core purpose in an agile methodology. It is also impossible to incorporate the ideal agile role definition of the project manager, while the efficiency benefits of the sequential development approach must also be considered if the goal is to achieve high production value. As such, either greater emphasis must be put on the creation of an agile team, a large challenge and risk within such a short timeframe, or one must abandon certain agile principles in order to deliver higher production value.