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A Mike Cohn Signature Book
Agile Game Development with Scrum
Deliver Better Games Faster, On Budget—And Make Game Development Fun Again!
Ìý
Game development is in crisis—facing bloated budgets, impossible schedules, unmanageable complexity, and death march overtime. It’s no wonder so many development studios are struggling to survive. Fortunately, there is a solution. Scrum and Agile methods are already revolutionizing development outside the game industry. Now, long-time game developer Clinton Keith shows exactly how to successfully apply these methods to the unique challenges of game development.
Ìý
Keith has spent more than fifteen years developing games, seven of them with Scrum and agile methods. Drawing on this unparalleled expertise, he shows how teams can use Scrum to deliver games more efficiently, rapidly, and cost-effectively; craft games that offer more entertainment value; and make life more fulfilling for development teams at the same time.
Ìý
You’ll learn to form successful agile teams that incorporate programmers, producers, artists, testers, and designers—and promote effective collaboration within and beyond those teams, throughout the entire process. From long-range planning to progress tracking and continuous integration, Keith offers dozens of tips, tricks, and solutions—all based firmly in reality and hard-won experience.
Ìý
Coverage includes
Understanding Scrum’s goals, roles, and practices in the context of game development Communicating and planning your game’s vision, features, and progress Using iterative techniques to put your game into a playable state every two to four weeks� even daily Helping all team participants succeed in their roles Restoring stability and predictability to the development process Managing ambiguous requirements in a fluid marketplace Scaling Scrum to large, geographically distributed development teams Getting overcoming inertia and integrating Scrum into your studio’s current processes Increasingly, game developers and managers are recognizing that things can’t go on the way they have in the past. Game development organizations need a far better way to work. Agile Game Development with Scrum gives them that—and brings the profitability, creativity, and fun back to game development.
Ìý
Game development is in crisis—facing bloated budgets, impossible schedules, unmanageable complexity, and death march overtime. It’s no wonder so many development studios are struggling to survive. Fortunately, there is a solution. Scrum and Agile methods are already revolutionizing development outside the game industry. Now, long-time game developer Clinton Keith shows exactly how to successfully apply these methods to the unique challenges of game development.
Ìý
Keith has spent more than fifteen years developing games, seven of them with Scrum and agile methods. Drawing on this unparalleled expertise, he shows how teams can use Scrum to deliver games more efficiently, rapidly, and cost-effectively; craft games that offer more entertainment value; and make life more fulfilling for development teams at the same time.
Ìý
You’ll learn to form successful agile teams that incorporate programmers, producers, artists, testers, and designers—and promote effective collaboration within and beyond those teams, throughout the entire process. From long-range planning to progress tracking and continuous integration, Keith offers dozens of tips, tricks, and solutions—all based firmly in reality and hard-won experience.
Ìý
Coverage includes
Understanding Scrum’s goals, roles, and practices in the context of game development Communicating and planning your game’s vision, features, and progress Using iterative techniques to put your game into a playable state every two to four weeks� even daily Helping all team participants succeed in their roles Restoring stability and predictability to the development process Managing ambiguous requirements in a fluid marketplace Scaling Scrum to large, geographically distributed development teams Getting overcoming inertia and integrating Scrum into your studio’s current processes Increasingly, game developers and managers are recognizing that things can’t go on the way they have in the past. Game development organizations need a far better way to work. Agile Game Development with Scrum gives them that—and brings the profitability, creativity, and fun back to game development.
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 6, 2010
81 people are currently reading
370 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
August 10, 2015
I am an experienced designer and producer of serious games who has always preferred an agile approach to projects but I've so far always "rolled my won" process. I decided it was time to put some effort into properly understanding the formal agile frameworks out there, starting with scrum.
This book delivers on the promise of its title in spades. A solid introduction to scrum in general, and its application to game development specifically. The style is casual but serious, there are a ton of references for the reader wanting to delve deeper, and the author also discusses other agile process tools in addition to scrum that may be of use in particular circumstances. Highly recommended.
This book delivers on the promise of its title in spades. A solid introduction to scrum in general, and its application to game development specifically. The style is casual but serious, there are a ton of references for the reader wanting to delve deeper, and the author also discusses other agile process tools in addition to scrum that may be of use in particular circumstances. Highly recommended.
August 4, 2019
Fantastic book that helps understanding the usage of Scrum in game development as well as answers many questions for those who think it's not useful in the gaming industry. I highly recommend it not only to producers and project managers but also for other people in your teams who might feel it's "not for them or their studios". As one of those who use Scrum on a daily basis and working in a team mastering the agile practices, let me just say: read the book and try it out step by step. You'll be positively surprised how great it is! :)
January 9, 2021
This is an amazing and comprehensive reference for game development with agile, useful for both people just starting at it and people who have been at it for many years.
Game development has some peculiarities compared to regular IT development. This book does a great job of bridging that. And it will teach you basic and advanced agile techniques on the way.
Recommended for all game developers who want to continuously improve their way of work.
Game development has some peculiarities compared to regular IT development. This book does a great job of bridging that. And it will teach you basic and advanced agile techniques on the way.
Recommended for all game developers who want to continuously improve their way of work.
January 17, 2024
The agile development bible - highly recommend this for everyone wanting to work anywhere agile. This breaks down how to actually be agile which most companies fail to do.
Reading this book may not make you a true agile developer but it will help you think about your pipelines and improve your processes.
Reading this book may not make you a true agile developer but it will help you think about your pipelines and improve your processes.
November 2, 2020
This is a must read for anyone in the games industry. Even if it's now a bit old as it came out in 2010. I'm looking forward to the new new version "Agile Game Development: Build, Play, Repeat" which came out in 2020.
February 5, 2019
This is a good book, well written. Maybe it could be updated for the real situation, since we are improving a lot practices.
March 10, 2021
That's a great book for sure, can highly recommend! If you're looking not just great practices, which can help you with game development, but also great companies, that can implement your game ideas or already made game solutions, I can also recommend you this agency and their website with a portfolio. They have plenty of reliable and great examples to show, what exact games they have developed, and what you should pay attention during a process of development.
September 15, 2011
Cuando empecé a aprender este libro para aprender sobre Scrum, nunca creà que tales filosofÃas de desarrollo ágil estuvieran tan bien explicadas y aplicadas para el desarrollo de videojuegos.
El autor tiene una vasta experiencia como desarrollador de juegos AAA para varias consolas (incluso el reciente Playstation 3), asà como en la implementación de metodologÃas ágiles en varios estudios y equipos de trabajo. Toda esa experiencia la ha sabido llevar al papel a modo de ilustrativos ejemplos y casos de éxito.
Si se dedican al desarrollo de juegos, necesitan leer este libro ya.
El autor tiene una vasta experiencia como desarrollador de juegos AAA para varias consolas (incluso el reciente Playstation 3), asà como en la implementación de metodologÃas ágiles en varios estudios y equipos de trabajo. Toda esa experiencia la ha sabido llevar al papel a modo de ilustrativos ejemplos y casos de éxito.
Si se dedican al desarrollo de juegos, necesitan leer este libro ya.
February 28, 2014
This book is pretty much THE book for game development teams that are adopting agile methodology. The author is one of the few out there that really has lived the experience of integration and managing teams. There's a lot of people who can talk about the principles and the methodology - but agile in game developement is a different beast.
August 22, 2011
A good book for those wanting an intro to Scrum in a game studio, but I found it less relevant to mobile game dev because of small team sizes and shorter development roadmaps.
May 5, 2016
Very strait-forward and useful books.
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