4 ms·

The first thing that comes to mind is Joel's Five Worlds http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorlds.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorl

The first thing that comes to mind is Joel's Five Worlds http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorlds.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FiveWorlds.html not all software dev is the same. Coming from games, every project I've been on was an original title. That meant it was 100% up to the team to decide the scope of the game. Most teams (not all) guess how much they can get done and don't plan for cutting features. "We're going to have 12 characters, 30 levels, 10 power ups, 45 enemies, 600 puzzles, online multiplayer, and IAP for 500 items". And then they just start making it. They run into 2 big problems. 1) They don't know if the game will be fun until they're 50-60% in. If they guessed wrong they're off schedule 2) They're attached to the vision and unwilling to cut stuff. My point though is this doesn't fit "we didn't start early enough" IMO. They knew how much time they had. No one was/is dicating too much work. They can cut the scope at any time. But they rarely do. There are solutions. 1 is to prototype with a small team. Unfortunately most teams can't do that as they'd have 90% of their staff doing nothing. Larger companies can do this or maybe if they switched to the Hollywood model, no employees only contractors, they could do it. 2 is to design so things can be cut and to check the schedule and start cutting. This one is hard for most teams because they see the game they imagined in their minds and it's not the game with stuff cut. Players though don't know what that vision is and so won't missed the cut features because they aren't aware of them.

dahart 11y ago
> My point though is this doesn't fit "we didn't start early enough" IMO. They knew how much time they had. No one was/is dicating too much work. They can cut the scope at any time. But they rarely do. Doesn't knowing how much time you have, and then not cutting scope when you see your plans don't fit into that time, count as not starting early enough? I also came from games, and I agree that scope is rarely cut, and often self-inflicted. I was also under Mr. Very Large Publisher, and it was more complicated than that- we had control over scope, but not over schedule. We had control over how much work to do and the quality, but not the budget. The major problem in my experience was that the team was excited, motivated and willing to work hard, so optimistic about their ability to do great things inside the limited budget and schedule. Therefore, they tried to do too much. All other things being equal, more time would have helped, every single time. Which can be summarized as "we didn't start early enough." That doesn't mean that actually starting earlier would have solved the problem. Actually starting earlier might have led to even larger plans. So, IMO "we didn't start early enough." is not meant to be taken literally, it's a way of understanding the problem, not a way to solve the problem.
- greggman 11y ago
  You can use "we didn't start early enough" in such a way that it loses all meaning. If you know your deadline (most game devs do) and your 100% in control of your scope then it's up to you (the team) to pick a scope that fits your resources (people and time). The original article talked about situations where people didn't know the scope or couldn't change it and often wasted lots of time not starting. I think those are fundamentally different situations.
  - dahart 11y ago
    You're absolutely right that games are in a generally different situation than a lot of other software projects; having control over scope means, in theory, you don't ever have to be late. And yet it happens routinely, possibly (I speculate) more often than not. The article implied once that people wasted time waiting to start, in reason #1: "Nobody had the guts to kick off the project until the competition proved it doable and desirable." But reason #2 is where games that have a deadline and scope control fit in. "If the project were started long enough before its due date to finish on time, all involved would have had to face up to the fact from the beginning that it was going to cost a lot more than anyone was willing to pay." You picked a scope that fits your resources, and yet you manage to run well past the deadline. You started it thinking you'd get it done in time, and yet you managed to run late. If you started earlier with the same deadline, scope, people, etc., you would finish on time. This might feel like a somewhat silly observation (which the author points out in advance) but it is nonetheless true for the situations you are describing. If you didn't finish on time, then you didn't start early enough. It's a slightly twisted way of saying your scope was bigger than you thought. It's not saying that actually starting earlier is the solution. Reason #3 is entirely metaphorical. "No one knew that the project needed to be done until the window of opportunity was already closing." This is saying that you know your scope, and you have a deadline, but you didn't even think of the idea until it was too late. It is true to say that you didn't start early enough, but it is also true that you couldn't possibly have started it earlier, without a crystal ball. The thrust here is not literal. I disagree that it loses any meaning at all, it just might not mean what you thought.

dahart 11y ago

> My point though is this doesn't fit "we didn't start early enough" IMO. They knew how much time they had. No one was/is dicating too much work. They can cut the scope at any time. But they rarely do. Doesn't knowing how much time you have, and then not cutting scope when you see your plans don't fit into that time, count as not starting early enough? I also came from games, and I agree that scope is rarely cut, and often self-inflicted. I was also under Mr. Very Large Publisher, and it was more complicated than that- we had control over scope, but not over schedule. We had control over how much work to do and the quality, but not the budget. The major problem in my experience was that the team was excited, motivated and willing to work hard, so optimistic about their ability to do great things inside the limited budget and schedule. Therefore, they tried to do too much. All other things being equal, more time would have helped, every single time. Which can be summarized as "we didn't start early enough." That doesn't mean that actually starting earlier would have solved the problem. Actually starting earlier might have led to even larger plans. So, IMO "we didn't start early enough." is not meant to be taken literally, it's a way of understanding the problem, not a way to solve the problem.

greggman 11y ago
You can use "we didn't start early enough" in such a way that it loses all meaning. If you know your deadline (most game devs do) and your 100% in control of your scope then it's up to you (the team) to pick a scope that fits your resources (people and time). The original article talked about situations where people didn't know the scope or couldn't change it and often wasted lots of time not starting. I think those are fundamentally different situations.
- dahart 11y ago
  You're absolutely right that games are in a generally different situation than a lot of other software projects; having control over scope means, in theory, you don't ever have to be late. And yet it happens routinely, possibly (I speculate) more often than not. The article implied once that people wasted time waiting to start, in reason #1: "Nobody had the guts to kick off the project until the competition proved it doable and desirable." But reason #2 is where games that have a deadline and scope control fit in. "If the project were started long enough before its due date to finish on time, all involved would have had to face up to the fact from the beginning that it was going to cost a lot more than anyone was willing to pay." You picked a scope that fits your resources, and yet you manage to run well past the deadline. You started it thinking you'd get it done in time, and yet you managed to run late. If you started earlier with the same deadline, scope, people, etc., you would finish on time. This might feel like a somewhat silly observation (which the author points out in advance) but it is nonetheless true for the situations you are describing. If you didn't finish on time, then you didn't start early enough. It's a slightly twisted way of saying your scope was bigger than you thought. It's not saying that actually starting earlier is the solution. Reason #3 is entirely metaphorical. "No one knew that the project needed to be done until the window of opportunity was already closing." This is saying that you know your scope, and you have a deadline, but you didn't even think of the idea until it was too late. It is true to say that you didn't start early enough, but it is also true that you couldn't possibly have started it earlier, without a crystal ball. The thrust here is not literal. I disagree that it loses any meaning at all, it just might not mean what you thought.