Favro for
Game Development
What’s your favorite team? A sports team? A band? Maybe even a favorite indie game studio? If you think of any successful, high-performing team it’s almost always going to be made up of very different specialties; maybe each individual is the best at what they do, or maybe not. What makes them great is how they work together; how they complement each other’s skills; how they collaborate; in essence, how they make 1 + 1 = 3.
Outstanding modern game development teams have figured out the best ways of working together, whether it’s a small ten-person team or teams of teams scaling into the hundreds. Every team member may represent a different discipline — engineer, artist, designer, musician — but at their core, they are game developers first. At times they may seek direction based on the game’s overall vision, but they certainly don’t want anyone telling them how to achieve that vision. They’re self-empowered, self-managed, and proven. If and when they realize they need a collaboration tool, they want an app that allows them to work anywhere, and in the way they choose, whether it’s an accepted methodology, a hybrid, or something entirely new.
No matter where, when, or how you work as a team, Favro’s cloud-based flexibility will enhance collaboration, simplify coordination, even across teams, and keep everyone focused on a shared vision, without getting in the way of the creative process.
Individuals want to know what they should be working on, but they also need to know what other team members are doing, especially if they have dependencies. Favro’s To Do List makes it a no brainer to figure out what should be done next, while customizable team boards provide an at a glance view of exactly who’s working on what feature, asset or task, and their current status or stage. All team members can provide feedback via comments and easily share related document attachments or images. Relations on cards even show the status of what other teams are doing relative to a feature or asset, possibly even when the item is scheduled for release.
While the ideal might be cross-functional teams comprised of all the discipline-specific skills to complete a feature or asset, the reality is it often takes multiple teams to complete a backlog item. For example, a playable art asset will incorporate gameplay mechanics and features will often have related assets. To facilitate the organic nature of these cross-team dependencies, Favro allows a feature or asset card to exist on multiple team boards at the same time. Each team working in different ways.
An asset card can be flowing through an art asset Kanban team board, while it is simultaneously moving through a feature Scrum team board. Each team working on the same backlog item, but with entirely different workflows. Teams can finally work together the way they want to, not the way they’ve previously been forced to by other tools.
One of the most frustrating experiences for any game developer, regardless of specialty, is having their work end up on “the cutting room floor”. While sometimes unavoidable, the vast majority of occurrences can be avoided with better studio-wide, real-time communications. Publishing, marketing, studio leadership, production, and the teams actually creating the game all need to be aligned and focused on a single shared vision. The various components of the vision can and should change, based on a variety of factors. Favro’s shared Backlogs, which can live in infinite Collections, ensure that everyone at all studio levels knows exactly what features and assets should be worked on next. This single capability can reduce a tremendous amount of waste and, ultimately, team member frustration.
Agile teams working together, adapting to change, and working towards a shared goal are the teams that have and will continue to succeed in the ultra-competitive world of game development. Adopting Favro will amplify everything that makes your teamwork. You might even find that your new favorite team is the one you’re already on.
