Team Orientation

At the start of this lab, you should get together in your assigned groups. If we were meeting in person, you would all sit together at the same table. But since we are online the first two weeks, this means that you will be joining the appropriate Zoom channel and we will place you in breakout rooms.

For some of you, this will be your first official meeting with your group. When you meet with your group, check to make sure that everyone is there. If anyone is missing, let us know immediately. If someone is missing group meetings this early, it does not bode well for the future. If a team member must be replaced, we need to know early while we can still add new people to the class.

Team Workflow

The purpose of today’s discussion is the Team Workflow document. At the very beginning of class, Traci will talk to you all about group dynamics and what is expected of you this semester. She will go over the purpose of the team workflow. She will also talk about what to do if you think you need to revise your workflow document.

We do not expect you to finish the team workflow in class time. Instead you will finish it by this weekend. But should spend class time thinking about team roles. Everyone should have some sort of role. However, there are four roles that are very important:

Project Leader

This person is in charge of assigning tasks and keeping the group on top of deadlines. They are also responsible for gathering together the information for the bi-weekly reports (though everyone is expected to contribute). This should be someone who can get along with everyone on the team.

Software Lead

This person is in charge of the architecture decisions on the project. They lead the design of the architecture specification, and have final say on all class interfaces. They also assign programming tasks to the other members of the team. This should not be the same person as the Project Leader.

Design Lead

In the case of multiple designers, this is the person who sets the visual aesthetic of the game. They have final say on the artistic style of the game, and the other designers are expected to conform to this style.

User Research Lead

Playtesting is a major focus in 4152/5152, more-so than it is in the introductory course. It is also more of a challenge since your players are not guaranteed to have the right hardware to play the game. The user research lead is responsible for getting the game into the hands of players. More importantly, this person is responsible for both recording and analyzing the results of these playtesting sessions.

Submission

There is no submission unique to this ENGRC lab. Instead, you will submit your your Team Workflow document the end of the week. We will also grade this submission, though the grade will be pass/fail for the first draft. This document will be part of your documentation grade.