Three Melons is a leading game studio in Latin America with over 45 employees across offices in Buenos Aires and Los Angeles. They use Scrum in cross-functional teams comprising artists, developers, designers, producers, testers and managers to develop rich web and iPhone social games. Some of the challenges of using Scrum across disciplines include dependencies between areas, time-boxed estimates versus completion estimates, and the potential for cross-functional teams to lack cohesion.

1. Agile GameDevelopment SCRUM in cross-disciplinedteams

2. Agenda Aboutthecompany and theteams ChallengeswithScrum Experiences

3. About Three Melons Three Melons is a leading GAME STUDIO in Latin America. The studio houses top talent in its offices in Buenos Aires, Argentina and has a business development office in Los Angeles, California.

4. Rich Web & iPhone Social Games

5. Our games

6. Current and past clients/partners 4mm Games

7. Studio Profile and Team Founded in 2005 Our team : +45 Artists Developers Gamedesigners Producers Testers Management Staff Offices Primary Office in Buenos Aires US businessdevelopment office in Los Angeles Foto + breve historia

8. Certified Agile Methodology

9. Our SCRUM

11. Our Processes

13. OurTeams GameDesigner ScrumMaster 2D, 3D Artists Developers Animators ProductOwner Testers GraphicDesigners

14. OurTeams 1 teamper game 5 – 12 people Co-located

15. TheChallenge Dependenciesbetweenareas, Completionestimates vs Time-boxedestimates, “Cross-functional teams can lack this all-for-one and one-for-all benefit that comes more easily to teams of one discipline.” Clinton Keith, agilegamedevelopment.com

16. Stories Vertical slices of thegame, Involveworkforeveryarea, Are estimatedwithpoints, Are doable in no more thanone sprint, Gofortheminimumrequeriment and allowforpolishing in a followingiteration.

17. Workflow Describes the interface betweenareas, Reduces waste time and increasesproductivity, Defined in Sprint 0, Changesforeveryuniquegame, Extendsthe formal gamedevelopmentprocess, Includesassetrequirements, repositories, fileformats, etc, Isessentialwhenoutsourcingpart of theproject.

18. Sprints and DailyScrum Collectiveownership Allareas are involved in everystory, Team-leveldecisions, Break-downintotasksis a waste of time and theteam loses focusonthestory, Priorities are a must!

19. Communication and Tools Over-communication, Simple toolsthateverybodyunderstands, Visible task-board, Peopleco-locatedbyproject, notarea, TRUST and Tolerance

20. Training Cross-disciplinary training, Teachbasicconceptstosavethe gap betweenareas, Encourageinitiativesforself-training and cross-training amongteammembers.

21. Retrospectives Sprint and Project Retrospectives, Reviewworkflow, Personal commitments, Area and cross-arearevisionmeetings.

22. Pauline Morrison Fell polin@threemelons.com

23. Questions ?