tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post2109187312288739390..comments2024-03-28T06:52:15.545+01:00Comments on Joost's Dev Blog: The Maarten Principle: a golden rule of planningJoost van Dongenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00569566310604620045noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-43329082296669147512014-04-25T10:31:56.017+02:002014-04-25T10:31:56.017+02:00i just love devs blogs...thanks!i just love devs blogs...thanks!Michelhttp://www.pmstudy.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-86676299423769699302014-02-17T13:49:20.785+01:002014-02-17T13:49:20.785+01:00Good article - it reminds me of Joel Spolsky's...Good article - it reminds me of Joel Spolsky's Evidence Based Scheduling article (http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html) where the cut off is 16 hours!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-15172806071617352452014-02-04T14:26:01.303+01:002014-02-04T14:26:01.303+01:00After years of planning, I have concluded the same...After years of planning, I have concluded the same thing: a planning is never perfect. We now consider it a living breathing thing that is constantly updated with whatever new information we get. So it might not be perfect, but at least it is always as informative as it can be and helps us make decisions. In other words: it helps us cancel features in time... ;)Joost van Dongenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00569566310604620045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-78571251431659729962014-02-04T12:20:46.344+01:002014-02-04T12:20:46.344+01:00great article by the way :-)great article by the way :-)Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04942789327676568967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-63267238623427908082014-02-04T12:19:35.083+01:002014-02-04T12:19:35.083+01:00Planning is a world of pain. I think the whole thi...Planning is a world of pain. I think the whole thing is kind of futile, even with the best planning technique it is hard to get it right within 20% (assuming that is your contingency). At the same time it is essential, you must go through the process to keep your development realistic, as long as you keep in mind that your plan isn't always correct.<br /><br />I prefer a hybrid format, somewhere between scrum and waterfall, where you separate the core features from extension goals, and remain fairly agile.<br /><br />At the end of the day, everyone always knows what their budget is, this is usually fairly fixed so the point of planning is to make sure what you are working towards isn't entirely unrealistic.Danhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04942789327676568967noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-88999259561238017412014-02-03T08:48:08.675+01:002014-02-03T08:48:08.675+01:00The last paragraph makes for a great quote! :)
Ju...The last paragraph makes for a great quote! :)<br /><br />Judging a project by its complete scope is an interesting approach, but I guess we will have to do many more projects to make that work. We only finish one game every few years, so gathering projects to compare to goes very slowly that way... This will work better for teams that finish at least several games per year, I expect.Joost van Dongenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00569566310604620045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3064325214589649535.post-59533003765651755152014-02-02T23:51:23.836+01:002014-02-02T23:51:23.836+01:00Very recognisable problem, and interesting solutio...Very recognisable problem, and interesting solution. So far I've countered it by spreading... maybe entropy is a decent word for it. My global estimate of all of the work is usually far more accurate than the estimate of larger tasks put together, perhaps due to previous experience with projects of similar scope. Of course this only works if the features don't expand during development, which they always do, which is another interesting tidbit I encountered: the longer you drag out development, the more features will expand.<br /><br />This was especially noticeable when we had a tech problem that took a long time to fix (so no features were being updated at all in the current build), at which point the design of the game had pretty much completely changed.<br /><br />The biggest problem I've encountered with estimates is when you have to do something you've never done before. The second biggest problem is that we tend to do this all of the time.Aaron Oostdijkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01224714590375122434noreply@blogger.com