Resources for video game production

Project Plans – Why and How

Project Plans – Why and How

Dec 29, 2018

Proper project scheduling is underappreciated in indie and hobbyist developer circles. It is usual to read comments encouraging users just to get started and figure it out as they go. Many people also assume that a formal project plan means your team is going full waterfall – a term that carries some negative connotations in game development, which is one of the reasons behind the crunch culture still prevalent at some studios.  However, traditional project scheduling has an essential place for established game developers and hobbyist that want to take the step up to full-time indie.

In this article, I will explain why project plans, scheduling, in particular, are useful, how to integrate them with modern (agile) development practices, and finally, I will provide a template that readers can download.

Why not create a project plan

Actual game development teams work better under agile methodologies; thus, it is not surprising that what most people would consider game production is better tracked using agile project management tools that consist of a backlog, task or Kanban boards, and commits/version control logs – Think Jira, HacknPlan, Hansoft, etc.

Why create a project plan

There is a lot more to game production than just development, for example, product management, marketing, funding, hiring and general management tasks. Most of the previous functions are predictable, require actions to be taken in advance (i.e., you start the hiring process before you need the resource), and are sequential in nature. Taking the time to think about what needs to be done, by whom and when will vastly increase your odds of releasing a successful game – that is a good game, released within budget and targeted to the correct market at the right price point. Publishers will look at a team having a proper project plan as a better investment, all things being equal than those that do not.

In a nutshell, if your game is a passion project and you don’t plan to make a living or seek external funding, you don’t really need a project schedule – find whatever backlog tool works for you and have fun. On the other hand, if you hope to make money from your game, read on.

How to integrate a traditional project plan with agile development

The key to a good game production project plan is to acknowledge the different natures of iterative vs. sequential tasks. The latter, sequential tasks, can be tracked to the highest reasonable level of detail. The former, iterative tasks, should only be represented in the plan as a time-boxed (fixed start and end date) line item (ex: Sprint 1) with every person involved allocated to it. The actual tracking of iterative tasks should happen on a backlog based system.

The system described above is essentially a two-tier system, where sequential tasks are fully covered in the project plan, and iterative tasks are only referenced in the plan (but tracked in an agile project management system). The advantage of using such a two-tier system is that it allows the development team to self-organize as they see fit, but it still provides visibility on how many sprints/releases they plan to do and what are the different development milestones happening. These development milestones are in turn used as markers for other activities (Ex: looking for a publisher or creating a kick starter campaign usually requires some development to be completed) and it enhances transparency and cooperation between teams (Ex: developers will not be caught flat-footed when the marketing people ask them for game content to show. As simple as it sounds, this case is one of the most commonly cited causes of crunch through game development history).

Project Plan template

I created the attached project as part of a Project Management course from UCLA Extension. In it I cover:

  1. Project management: Overall tracking of the project and risk management
  2. Resource management: Identify contractor/employees needed and hiring
  3. Product management:
    • Identify profitable markets to enter
    • Analyze competition
    • Define positioning, monetization, branding and marketing channels
    • Kickstarter campaign / Publisher outreach
    • Reporting to publisher
    • Reporting to backers, community/press
  4. Game development:
    • Concept
    • Pre-Production
    • Production
    • Post-Production & Submission

I also included a pdf version of the first 77-line items (everything up to production) and an excel version for those that don’t have access to MS Project.

Feel free to download and modify it to fit your projects.

How to write a project plan

  1. Think about all the things that the team must do to complete the project (Work Breakdown)
  2. Add all the activities and sub-activities necessary to complete the things you identified in the step above
  3. Estimate the effort necessary to complete each task
  4. Assign personnel to each line item (except milestones)
  5. Specify dependency between tasks
  6. Have someone check your list of tasks for completeness
  7. Solve any resource over-allocation (if you are using project management software execute resource leveling and the program will take care of it)

Project plan concepts

Sub-tasks: are represented by indentation (spaces inserted to the left). Tasks at a higher level of indentation (more spaces to the left) are sub-tasks of the closest task above it with a lower indentation (fewer spaces to the left). Ex: Tasks at the same level of indentation are separate tasks, though there might be a dependency between the two. Ex: Creating concept art and creating art assets are different tasks, but concept art is usually required for creating assets.

Dependency: represents if a specific task has a relationship with another task (its start or finish times are linked somehow).

RelationshipCodeDescriptionExample
Finish to StartFSTask can start after predecessor finishedA contractor can only start working after it is hired
Start to StartSSActivities can be accomplished in parallelDevelopment team can start iterating as soon as concept begins but before all the design/backlog is complete
Finish to FinishFFTask depends on another to finishQA can start before development is completed, but it can’t finish before development is completed
Start to FinishSFTask cannot finish until another beginsThe analytics stack (usually for freemium games) is considered under development until the game goes live

Duration: The size of the effort necessary to complete a task, this is usually measured in people days. Some tasks can be sped up by increasing the number of resources, but some can’t (ex: 1 woman can make 1 baby in 9 months, but 9 women can’t make one in 1 month). Duration can be specified outright or it can be calculated by counting days between a task start to its finish.

Milestones: Special events that are used to highlight achievements or points for external review in the life of the project. They have the unique quality of having no duration, as they are purely markers inside the plan.

Resource leveling: Are the adjustment of start and finish dates due to resource constraints. In essence, this results in a later, but more accurate, project finish date as tasks are delayed until required resources become available (Ex: a project with only one level designer has to delay creating a second scene until the first one is completed).

Graphical representation of the concepts introduced above using the attached project plan

Conclusion

A project plan is not always necessary, mainly if you are just a hobbyist with no intention to start a gaming company. However, when you are ready to take the step, the effort is well worth it. Creating the project plan itself is easier than what you might think and in the act of creating the project you might become aware of several tasks that you were not thinking of. For one or two days of work, you will have a document you can show to potential publishers to prove you are serious.
Even if you are thinking of not using a publisher, the plan will help you avoid most of the risks new studios face, such as: running out of money, delaying hiring key personnel, or not starting marketing the game early enough.