Jimmy Chattin - I make better games.

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Small Team Dynamics in Fury Void



Something to discuss this week is the intimate look into small-team dynamics that Team Fury must face.  No student team could ever be contrived to have the hundreds of souls that work on typical AAA games; heck, breakthrough games have been made on the skills of a single coder!  But in terms of big and small, there are vastly different ways that those team sizes effect game creation.

Fury Void is being worked on, by all accounts, what could be considered a small team.  A 4 man team of part-time game creators leads to many interesting group outcomes; some are good, others could be better.  So, let’s start with areas of improvement.

In the past semester, getting Fury Void worked on (in terms of man-hours) has been a trying affair.  Every person is resigned to work 8 hours a week, with those hours being more or (likely) less during any given week.  However, despite being such a small group, it is my feeling that more quality hours of work have been put into the game past that of other project teams.

That leads me to address the cost of laziness.  I make no exception for myself, and I leave none to the rest of the Fury Void team.  Having a lax day happens; there’s no getting around it.  But, when such an easy-going day arises, harsh impacts are felt on Fury Void’s development.

Even if it isn’t a fact of lethargy, being such a small team, any sickness, travel, or unforeseen situation is murderous to the release schedule.  Entire weeks of work are pushed back in the release window due to events coming-up that ruin work-times.  Though some accommodations and rescheduling is done, it can’t keep up with unforeseen circumstances.  Not even close.

Speaking of schedules, accurate time estimates are the ‘Holy Grails’ of game development.  Fury Void is hampered often enough by either a bug or feature that defies the skills of the 3 programmers on the team (and every forum post on the net).  These issues frequently lead to complete a reimagining of what is to come for Team Fury to develop.

The last ‘negative’ comes more from the structure of the academic course, but the consequences are extreme for the team itself.  This namely deals with the ability to ‘hire’ and ‘fire’ assets for the team.  Therefore, if additional work is needed to be brought in, the course makes it difficult to recruit new developers.  If a person needs to be let go, either from their skills not being needed any longer or that they have become a detriment to the team, they must remain on.  This, more than anything else, has been the largest hamper on both Team Fury and groups that I’ve worked in previously.

But now, some good things of having a small team!  With only a few individuals, getting meeting and work times together is a breeze.    Only 4 schedules are needed to be worked around; in contrast to 10- or 12-person teams that rarely see a true stability to their schedule.

With the regard to being easily brought together to meet, it is very easy to get to know a small team.  As a project lead, I’ve come to know the strengths, weaknesses, mannerisms, and work-ethics Team Fury provides; every person working on Fury Void knows what everyone else is able/looking to do.

Furthermore, if someone has an idea to add to Fury Void’s development process, pitching that idea to 3 others at one time versus a half-dozen others at various meetings is a whole lot easier.  This fact engenders a lot more investment on the part of the team into the project.  Every feature worked on has been developed, in part, by every person in the group.

Finally, having such a short-coming of personnel for Fury Void has helped reign-in scope very early.  Fury Void was originally pitched with a ‘doable limit’ in mind, but only 4 people working on it was never considered.  Therefore, with our numbers as justification, scope has always been taken into account before anything is carried out in Team Fury.  That has and will serve Team Fury very well throughout the coming months.

Small teams have some nasty, terrible qualities, but they also have some great advantages to larger groups.  In this experiment of numbers going against time, Fury Void will likely be better because of having such a low unit cap.  Team Fury is full of surprises, where I’m sure to learn a lot in how to make games.