Many video games are based on similar engines and formulas. They know what works and they follow that plan, new games come along because the engine is proven and they re-use it to save money. The formula stays the same with little to no improvement, costs decrease, and the need to do “well” drops because development time was saved and we can do “meh”. Or you can stay in a hole for a while, or…
I’ve been on a project the last few months where I’ve had to do much of my own QA. I’ve had to write unit tests, write test plans, and test cases. I’ve had to debug assertions of what should and shouldn’t be. Turns out I’m not as great at QA (or diligent) as I thought I was. Worst yet, turns out there are a slew of errors in my code. So apologies to all of…
Going with the flow is great until it starts going the wrong way. Then it’s just going somewhere you didn’t want to go, somewhere you didn’t want to end up. And now you’re wondering how you got here and where you go next. (Hint: It’s going against the flow).
The day before the product goes out the door is the last chance you have to fit that last UX bug in. The last chance you have to make a simple update to the documentation. The last time chance you have to get it “right”. All these last changes, generally end in disaster, you miss a space, you break the build, it makes it worse than you thought. And you’re left with it being worse…
Time is of the essence. You only have so long to accomplish a goal. If new work, is critical to that goal, that contributes to the definition of the deadline is starting towards the end, when the project is almost done, when everything is completed – your deadline is unbelievable. It won’t happen. It doesn’t make sense. You won’t believe it. Believable deadlines start with action, “stop what you’re doing”, “let’s think this through”, and…