The Development of a Dev: Setting the Stage
Where I am right now
I am a junior in college who has managed 6 teams prototyping 8 games over the course of 3 semesters. I have been certified as a ScrumMaster and have coached each of those teams in the usage of scrum to enhance their development practices. As a business student I also provide key advice to my team about the game's market and the best way to profit off of its development. As a game developer, my greatest strengths lie in my ability to see the full scope and impact of a game, my experience and comfortability in leadership positions, and my high organizational skills.
Where I'm going
As both the ScrumMaster and business administration for the teams that I work with, I have multiple skillsets that I need to improve on and balance with one another. As the ScrumMaster on a team it is my duty to be impartial to the project so that I can be as objective as possible, in other words, it works much less effectively when the ScrumMaster has a vested interest in say a designer completing their doc so that I can complete my work. This is something that I have to deal with on every project, and I constantly need to work on separating the work I do as the ScrumMaster from the work I do as a developer. One thing I feel I lack in my role as a developer are really strong marketing skills. I am good at figuring out who the market is, but I struggle with inventive and effective ways to reach the player base I have identified. This is something I am definitely aiming to improve. One other thing I need to improve on as both a developer and as a ScrumMaster is giving feedback. Specifically, I will be improving my ability to tell someone how I feel about their work without telling them how to do it, and I will be trying to give more feedback even when it isn't explicitly asked for. I do not like initiating conflict and I struggle at times to tell someone that their idea doesn't seem to match what the dev team is going for or what fits the target market base. But, that feedback does need to be given; sometimes wooly mammoths that breath fire just don't fit what is best for the game.