1. Coaching an Oregon Game Project Challenge team
Peter Steinfeld –
November 14, 2015

2. About me Professional software developer at IBM
Manage two small software development teams
Coached OGPC teams from Hillsboro High School in 2013 and 2014

3. OGPC Main Event Contest in Salem in April or May
Three judging criteria
Game
Presentation
Questioning by experts

4. Organizing your team Get help from a teacher Get a technical expert
Recruit team members
Arrange transportation to the main even and a space to meet
Get a technical expert
Pick a time and place to meet
Communicating with your team
Get everyone’s address
Get a central place to post information, Google Docs, for example

5. Running the project with Agile Development
Agile Development is used at IBM, Intel, Google, …
Assign roles to all team members
Product owner – interprets winning criteria
Scrum master – scheduling and “to do” list
Developers – coding, art, sound effects, …
Other roles -- Test master, Presentation master, Artist, Sound effects expert, Music master, Blogger
Divide the project into fixed time iterations
Deliver and test at the end of each iteration
Have a retrospective and planning meeting
One month is a good iteration duration

6. Running the project with Agile Development – continued …
Keep a “to do” list (AKA backlog)
Anyone can create a "to do" item
Each item has
An owner
A description of the "done" criteria
Gets declared "done" only when reviewed by someone else, preferable the creator
At each meeting, have a scrum
Everyone talks and answers the three questions
What did I do since last meeting?
What will I do next?
Is there anything stopping me from doing what I want?

7. Testing with Usability Testing
Have someone else use your product and observe the results
Do this at the end of each iteration
Performing usability testing
Create something to test (game, presentation, expertise)
Recruit the testers (gamers, teachers or parents, software experts)
Create tasks for the testers (play the game, observe the presentation, ask questions)
Prepare the testing environment (set up a game where it can be observed, set up a presentation environment, supply the experts with questions)

8. Testing with Usability Testing – continued …
Run the tasks and observe the results
Tell the testers that we're testing the game, not them
Tell the testers you want feedback on how to improve
Ask them to talk about what's going on in their heads while they test
Run the test -- observer and take notes
Consolidate the observations and create "to do" items

9. Developing the game Pick a game development platform
Unity, GameMaker, Scratch (MIT), Minecraft, Stencyl, Twine, RPG Maker
Create a prototype early and improve on it
Game development roles include coders, visual artists, sound effects people, musicians

10. Dealing with kids
Have the kids do all of the work – coding, scheduling, presentation -- everything
Make sure that everyone has a role and a task
Focus on the goal and how to test it

11. My 2015 OGPC team
Seven team members, me, my technical expert, and a teacher sponsor
I functioned as the Agile coach and manager
Unity as our game development platform
We used GitHub issues and waffle.io for our backlog
We blogged on Tumblr
We won the “Professionalism” award

12. My 2015 OGPC team We had three iterations – February, March, April
At the end of each iteration, we had a usability test session
Brought in high school kids to play the game
Brought in teachers and parents to see our presentation and give feedback on its clarity and interest
Brought in professional programmers to ask us about our coding techniques, our software tools, and our development methodology

13. My 2015 OGPC team
Our GitHub repository --
Our “to do” list --
Our blog --

14. Thank you for participating
Contact me if you need help --