09 September 2012

Always Something New -- Week Ending 8 Sep

To this point, the drama level in my various teams has remained relatively low. Thank goodness. Throughout my life, the primary difficulty I've had with any sort of group or team project has been drama (or the occasional one wherein I felt like I was carrying far larger a load than was reasonable). Unfortunately, the past week has brought with it a degree of drama that I hoped would not end up in our thesis team.

The best remedy for such issues (that I have found) is an environment of open communication and a requirement that egos be left at the door. I feel that our team has generally done a great job of upholding these ideals, but introducing outsource artists to the mix has brought its own set of challenges. Stifled communication and a lack of understanding individual roles has thrown some kinks in the mix. And sometimes, sadly, individual personalities fail to join the team in its overall goals. In those cases, appropriate, effective assertiveness is the solution. I think we've worked out solutions to our struggles this week through some team meetings and personal discussions, so I hope it doesn't turn to more dire straits.

Besides trying to work with the aforementioned situation, the week was short for our team due to Labor Day (though some of us did meet to discuss art pipeline issues). All that noted, here's what I did:

- Managed both the art and the engineering backlogs and sprints
- Designed levels and whiteboxed them using Maya
- Established deliverable milestones up to the point of our IGF submission deadline (test sessions, official presentations, etc.)
- Organized, attended, and ran pipeline meetings for the engineering and art teams

Wish me luck this next week!

- Troy

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