0.2 planning (Patreon)

Kind of ironic that I never cared for project management when I was in my old IT company... but now I've had a good time reading a lot about the subject these past days. ^_^

And among the things I've learned, there's that one notion I didn't quite realize...: the "Iron Triangle" of software development.

That concept says that you have to decide where you want to be inside a triangle formed by three vertices...:

- Quality
- Quantity (scope)
- Schedule (time)

There is no point inside that triangle that will get 100% of all three, nor even two, of those concepts...:

If you are obsessed with perfection, you never move on to work on the next feature and never launch.

If you are okay with adequate quality, but are always adding new features to the project, you never launch.

If you rush up several low quality features, you launch a mediocre product. And if you release a version with just one or two excellent features, you still break your users expectations.

So, what happens when you don't want to reduce quality, nor quantity and also want to release in your (too optimistic) ETA?

Nobody goes home...

And that is precisely what it happened to me in the last six months, since I took over coding, animating, writing and designing this game. The amount of work and stress I'm subjecting myself to is just stupid.
(???_??)

And well... I've said 'designing' but I should have better said 'improvising'.

So, some days ago I decided to finally stop this self-destructive trend and find out, once and for all, how much work we actually have in front of us, and more importantly how should we split it up to tackle the huge workload in smaller chunks, or as they say in 'agile development' jargon, in "milestones".

And I think I've found a way to design a road map for the time being. It's obviously not set in stone and I've "only" foreseen some versions into the future, up until 0.4. But this should cover a decent time-frame so I know what exactly we should be doing next.

The image I'm showing you is a Gantt chart with tasks for 0.2. And if you take a look at the development board you'll also see them in the 'Ready' and 'Waiting' lists. It may appear to be small work but it isn't because those are big consolidated tasks. Both completing the male true side model, making its walking animation and implementing its logic in game will be frigging epic...

And that summed to the fact we're approaching holidays when I won't be able, even if I wanted, to work as much as now and my contract customer is "threatening" to need me on a daily basis for the next two weeks... well, I'm even pretty sure I've been maybe too optimistic once again. :-P

However, we finally have a work plan. So even if I need more time, it'll be time used to make the same amount of work with the same quality.

Now I just need some more time to fit in a girlfriend that puts up with me. Mmm, who knows, maybe I could concede her half of the Sundays...
(?_?)