I got back from vacation on Sunday last week (it is know Sunday when I write this post for context of time) and was exhausted so I didn't begin to jump back into my producer role until Monday and Tuesday. I was terrified by what I came back to. While I was gone the team had taken our game (now renamed AGAIN to 'Tales from the Blasterverse') to Mass Digi, a college game-pitch competition of sorts, and it didn't show very well. Our professor also was visibly upset with our lack of progress that week as the newest build was virtually unplayable with how broken many aspects were. I read this from my place in Florida but have no means to assist while I am gone so I simply follow it and wait for my return. This is all I see while I am away.
So I get back from vacation and am exhausted and a bit nervous to jump back into the project. I'm afraid of what I might find. I finally dive in fully on Tuesday (and yes, that is quite late in our sprint). It's actually worse than I thought. Half my team doesn't have any hours billed for the current week, and the sprint closes tomorrow. The same thing happened on the week I was gone - hours are extremely low or not even there. I panic as I'm looking over this because it shows that we have barely progressed, even though Alpha is due in just over a week. Alpha is supposed to be a fully playable build of the game. So I spend a decent chunk of time simply running through hours for each person, trying to figure out or gain a sense of what's going on. I'm unable to come up with much other than Mass Digi through things off for us more than we thought. That still doesn't account for this week's hours being so poor. I message my entire team on discord with a somewhat more aggressive than my usual style messaging telling the team that the hours there are unacceptable for the needs of this project, team and class. I try to be encouraging in the end by saying that each person on the team was picked for a reason and that they need to step up and fulfill that role. Unfortunately, my words online don't seem to motivate the team enough to finish the week strong and we fail the sprint (another in what seems to be a trend since I left).
While we have been progressing, all the individual parts just aren't coming together for us and progress has been much slower than planned or anticipated. I go to any game professors I can talk to and ask them for their opinions and advice on what to do. The consensus from them is that it seems like my team has an 'accountability' problem in which members don't feel a need to perform admirably for the team. This may be because we only do a single check-in of progress half way through the sprint - thus members feel like they can put off work till that point, and sometimes have very little to show even then. This in turn makes it so content can't be checked over in a timely manner before the end of the sprint.
I talk to my team as a whole during class time on Friday and tell them that there are going to be some changes:
First off, overall weekly hours for each individual are going to be expected to be up to the class standard of approximately 12.5 hours or more. This will hopefully mean that overall production capacity increases for the team but also make it so that some members feel more accountable and equal to others.
Secondly, instead of a single mid-sprint check in online, we will now have check ins every other day online. This will hopefully unsure that at least a bit more work is done earlier in the sprint. I hope that these changes will inspire this team to perform to the capabilities that they were originally 'hired' to do. I still wholeheartedly believe that this game could be really good - even the best of our class year - but at this point, it's clearly on the bottom in terms of what we have to show. This current sprint, that we are in now, will be a real tell of where this project and team is at and can go. Alpha is due on Friday, and the game must run and be up to a certain standard. It's a heavy work load for my team as a whole - something I'm not proud of as it means that I didn't perform my job well enough to reduce this crunch period.
One last thing I want to talk about is conflict within the team. My programmer team is beginning to fracture and I'm a bit unsure of how to correct this. You see, there is one programmer (of three) on the team who has been really under-performing for the last few weeks. This has caused the lead programmer, in particular, to get more and more burnt out and frustrated with them as they have felt the need and pressure to fix that programmers work each week. After class, my lead programmer and I had a chat with this programmer and gave them a formal warning that they needed to not only put in the hours required of the team (they were one of the ones not billing any recently), but also to fully test the work that they did produce and make sure it was compatible with the systems. We offered them assistance if needed but they politely turned it down.
Just yesterday however, I get a message from this programmer saying that they feel like the lead has been undervaluing them and being overly aggressive toward them. In turn, this has been some of the reason that they have shut down more and more in terms of outputting work. They say that they have been and still are considering leaving the team, as the culture they are experiencing is rather toxic. So now, I feel like I'm in a really tough spot. On one hand, I know that my lead programmer is right about this programmers work not being up to standard. On the other hand, I also know that my lead programmer can let his emotions and frustrations dictate his actions - something that isn't proper from a lead.
I message back to the struggling programmer and offer them some options for dialogue or possible solutions and encourage them to perform at their best this next week and see if things improve. I'll likely talk with the lead and ask him to check his emotions more carefully when dealing with this situation. Ultimately though, I really am at a bit of a loss as to how to properly address this situation. I'm going to keep trying to calm the sides and not play favorites, but I don't think that will ultimately be enough to solve this particular issue.
Anyway, that has been my last week in a nutshell. If I said that I was calm and not panicking a bit right now, I'd be lying. All I know is that I have to keep pushing forward to the best of my ability and encouraging my team to do the same.