Comments on: My producer hates me One thing I did become aware of is non-trackable task assignment is bad, when you have someone who is willing to give tasks outside of the schedule, how can someone give accurate schedule estimates if they are expected to do 3 things not on the schedule at the same time? This might be a designer or artist who have just had a really good idea and want to try it out right away, or it might be a lead coder that wants to implement a new coding standard that they are going to retroactively support. Whatever the case might be you get a shift in the schedule with no visible reason, digging can find out why, but addtionally this means that the task itself has not gone through the usual phases getting into the schedule in the first place. p.s. Thanks Mike for remembering the July 4th celebrations! My stay in Champaign with Volition was made a much better visit by some of the great folks I met, yourself, Isaac, Lori and Joanna (to name a few, no I haven't forgotten the others, just too many names to list) all made it a lot better for the guy with the funny accent! One thing I did become aware of is non-trackable task assignment is bad, when you have someone who is willing to give tasks outside of the schedule, how can someone give accurate schedule estimates if they are expected to do 3 things not on the schedule at the same time?

This might be a designer or artist who have just had a really good idea and want to try it out right away, or it might be a lead coder that wants to implement a new coding standard that they are going to retroactively support. Whatever the case might be you get a shift in the schedule with no visible reason, digging can find out why, but addtionally this means that the task itself has not gone through the usual phases getting into the schedule in the first place.

p.s. Thanks Mike for remembering the July 4th celebrations! My stay in Champaign with Volition was made a much better visit by some of the great folks I met, yourself, Isaac, Lori and Joanna (to name a few, no I haven’t forgotten the others, just too many names to list) all made it a lot better for the guy with the funny accent!

]]>
By: Gwaredd/2011/05/18/my-producer-hates-me/#comment-4535 Gwaredd Thu, 19 May 2011 09:26:08 +0000 Funny to come across Phillip Hounslow's name randomly in a blog post. He sat next to me when he came to Volition short-term to help us out on Saints Row 2. We had some good laughs at his expense regarding his presence in small-town America for Independence Day. I'm right there with you on the "diary" approach to systems development. I keep a piece of paper handy, maybe diagram something, probably not. I track the features, pitfalls, and wish-list items I need to keep in mind. I haven't made a UML diagram since I left college. Funny to come across Phillip Hounslow’s name randomly in a blog post. He sat next to me when he came to Volition short-term to help us out on Saints Row 2. We had some good laughs at his expense regarding his presence in small-town America for Independence Day.

I’m right there with you on the “diary” approach to systems development. I keep a piece of paper handy, maybe diagram something, probably not. I track the features, pitfalls, and wish-list items I need to keep in mind. I haven’t made a UML diagram since I left college.

]]>