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Improving Game Development Processes Through Retrospective Meetings

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Improving Game Development Processes Through Retrospective Meetings

Pelikehityksen prosessien kehittäminen retrospektiivi-tapaamisten avulla

Digital game industry is one of the fastest-growing industries, and game development professionals are in high demand all around the world. Despite this, studies on game development processes are relatively scarce on the scientific field. Game development is a subset of software development, but methodologies for traditional software production do not always fit with the unique challenges of making games. This thesis evaluates using retrospective meetings from agile methodologies in a game development context. The ultimate purpose is to learn whether retrospective meetings alone, without other parts of an agile framework, can help game development teams improve their production methods and work processes. Research was conducted as a case study in a game development company. The case study consisted of pre-study interviews, followed by several rounds of iteration retrospective meetings as well as two longer project retrospective meetings known as postmortems. Data was collected from the retrospectives throughout the study. A post-study questionnaire with open and structured questions was also used to measure employees’ attitudes towards retrospectives and postmortems at the end of the study. Multiple data sources indicated that employees of the company felt that retrospectives were useful and that their use should be a permanent part of the company’s processes. Retrospectives also demonstrably had concrete effects in the improvement of company level processes and conventions. Postmortem meetings were seen as potentially useful, but the structure used in them during the study was deemed subpar. In conclusion, retrospectives had a positive effect on working processes and work environment. Their usage also does not have to be limited to software team context, as retrospectives with participants from many smaller teams produced concrete results. However, additional study is required to assess whether retrospectives are useful in a game development team context in the long term.

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