GDC: Gears of War 2 Producer Fergusson Talks “Necessary Crunch”

Gears of War 2.His most salient point was that producers should work with the team to fix a release date early, once it’s possible to have a vision for the project scope, and then stick to that date, barring extreme circumstances.In the traditional “iron triangle” of important elements of production, there’s schedule, scope, and resources. Fergusson paraphrased Jim McCarthy, author of “The Dynamics of Software Development” in saying, “In software there are thousands of variable. Every project has risks and issues. But what if you could take just one of those variables, and fix it? Just lock it. Hold it to a certain value, and let that help you gauge your other problems.”For Fergusson, that variable is the schedule, but of course you need a belief that the ship date is both realistic and unchangeable. “One of the great things is it creates a clear goal for the team,” he says. It proves there’s an actual light at the end of the tunnel. “They say you need constraints to have creativity and prioritization.”To supplement this, at the beginning of Gears 2’s development, 16 project areas were asked what they thought were the five most important things to push forward in… Read full this story

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