Last week was tough, but this week seems to take the cake for trouble. But let's back up a bit. When the team started this week, we planned on two main things being done; documentation fully updated (to mark off in the grade book if you will) and for a build with all the current systems working together so we could test it. While documentation seems to have gone smoothly, the build side has not. Particularly troubling was an issue on the programmer side in which one programmer's work wasn't properly communicating with the others work (the network side of the game). This caused a bit of a stir and pile up of work resulting in a failed sprint cycle for this week.
Even with this issue, there was some real positivity that came from it. The first is that, while brief, I was finally put to a small test of conflict resolution when one programmer approached me with this issue. Because things were getting backed up, the other programmer had dipped into his tasks and done some of them. This action of taking the other's tasks had unsurprisingly disturbed the team-member who came to me with this issue. I talked to him for a bit and gave him options based on what the team had agreed upon early during the semester for conflict steps he could take. The rest is history now. The conflict was sorted out peacefully. The other positive aspect to come out of this is that it happened now and not later. The closer this issue came to the presentation deadline on Thanksgiving week, the worse the effects would have been on our project being complete as a whole. Because the programmers talked this out, they know that further communication and working together is needed now, to streamline this process for later.
If I'm being honest, the only other hurdle has been with myself. I severely underestimated how long it would take for me to complete my documentation (it took more than double the time) which, in an already heavy week of work has left me exhausted with it all. I'm happy it's done now but I wish I had realized how much work I had given myself this week ahead of time. It's amazing how much that shapes my perception of the rest of the sprint. To me, this has been the most challenging week of work, but that isn't necessarily the case with my designer, artist, or even programmers. It's a good reminder that the workload, as well as other elements going on in my team members personal, academic, and professional lives, will shape their own perceptions of our progress and ability to complete this project. Basically, if their stressing about this project or other areas in their lives, it will have an extremely large impact on their motivation to press forward. I feel it from just one hard week. I can only begin to imagine what my artist, programmers, or designer feels on a bad week. Their work has more eyes on it and has to mesh together.
This week and sprint isn't quite over for me, so I will end by asking this; how, as a producer/project manager can I combat this more fully for my team? I know that proper planning will go a long way to make sure my team isn't overwhelmed, but is there more I could be doing? More I should be doing? My only thought is to try one-on-one conversations with my team to really give them a chance to vent (if they need it) as well as to better understand their own perception of the project's current state. For now, I just need some sleep and this sprint to be over.