Production on the game Stitches has officially wrapped. With another project complete its time to reflect on what I learned. In my blog "Teamwork Makes the Dream" work I reflected on the successes and failures of the team as a whole. In this blog I would like to focus on how I personally progressed as a developer throughout this project. To do this I will be using a series of reflecting questions in order to see how I have grown and changed throughout the project.
What have been your areas of greatest improvement? What contributed to this growth?
My greatest area of improvement during this semester was to my time management skills. In the past I had not structured my time well which lead to many things bot getting done in time. During this project I sat down and created list of what needed to get done then set specific time aside to get it done. I keep this list and my schedule in a journal which took with me everywhere. This allowed me to know exactly what I had to do and more importantly the time I had to do it. Thus lead to an improvement not only to my productivity but also to my mental health. In the past I felt a great deal of guilt whenever I was not working as there was always more to do and I felt like I was not accomplishing enough. This clear schedule allowed me to feel safe in my downtime as I knew exactly when things would get done.
What have you learned about being a good team member and collaborator?
My greatest growth as a collaborator came from learning how to be a good supporting member of the team. In the past I have usually either been in a possession of leadership or in a team without a strong central leader. This is the first project I have been in where there has been a strong central leader that was not myself. During this project I had to learn how to work with and effectively communicate with the game's product owner. Leaning to accept his decisions even if I didn't agree with him was imperative to moving forward with the project in a consistent time frame. Finding the balance between pressing my own ideas and letting the product owner lead the team was critical.
As a supporting member I also learned how to be flexible and fill whatever role the team needs me to. During this project I worked as one of the two dedicated programmers. This was the first time that I had worked as a primary programmer in a project. In addition I also composed the title theme and made the trailer. This taught me the importance of flexibility and a willingness to support the tam in any way possible. None of these roles were my specialty but I took them on in an effort to support my team and to make this project successful. This project has taught me the importance of flexibility and the willingness to adapt to a situation order t make the game successful.
What were your biggest challenges, how did you solve them, and how will you take that experience forward with you?
One of my biggest challenges was leaning to go from a designer to the role of a programmer. In the past while I had helped in the code when necessary it was never my primary role. In the past whenever I had a technical question there were dedicated person I could turn too. However during this project I was forced to find the own answers to my questions.
The biggest thing I will take out of this experience is how to adapt to different situations. Going forward I will be unafraid of tackling new challenges even if they if I am not an expert in the area that they may be in. I should never be afraid to try and learn by tackling new challenges as long as I am able to communicate to my team when problems occur.
Based on this experience, how will you approach your next development project differently?
During the next project I will be attempting to expand on my time management strategy. While my current strategy is ideal for day to day time management it has no plan for long term planning. For my next project I will begin making weekly and monthly plans to make sure that my time is being allocated in an efficient manner. This will allow me to look long term better and plan around known impediments far in advance.
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