“Focus on the culture and mindsets, not process.”
– S. Delesie

With this key area of my portfolio, I bring Best Practices and Optimization techniques.

Agile

Agile is a high-level mindset for project management focusing on flexibility, collaboration, and rapid iteration.

Agile emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and ongoing feedback, unlike the rigid Waterfall model, which follows a fixed, linear process. In Agile, projects are divided into small, manageable sprints, allowing teams to adjust based on new insights. This iterative approach helps teams stay adaptable, quickly incorporating stakeholder feedback to meet evolving requirements.

Agile For Everything?

While agile is a great tool, some feedback may come too late. For example, you may find some changes require significant database and API overhaul, which is hard or impossible. Some changes, like API or data model changes, are very hard, if not impossible. So, thinking deeply about certain areas upfront (likely very few issues) before implementation. The rest can be iterative.

Agile creates a leaner product experience and waterfall creates a more predictable project timeline

In game development, Agile enables regular delivery of playable builds, essential for testing and refining gameplay. By focusing on continuous improvement, teams can fix bugs, adjust mechanics, and polish features throughout development. This iterative feedback loop ensures game quality aligns with player expectations, making Agile a strong fit for creating engaging games.

Two popular approaches to agile are scrum and kanban.

Approach	Description
Scrum	Deliver work through a structured framework with defined roles and time-boxed iterations (sprints)
Kanban	Deliver work through a continual, visual progress without fixed time intervals

Challenges

Agile is not without its challenges. While it promises flexibility, efficiency, and improved collaboration, many organizations face obstacles when adopting it. Missteps during implementation can hinder progress, leaving teams frustrated and the transformation incomplete. Understanding the common pitfalls that lead to failure can help organizations navigate Agile more effectively and increase their chances of success.

My Experience

I have over 20 years of software development XP using various flavors of agile.

My agile journey began with formal training at Digital Onion in Los Angeles, a company specializing in agile methodologies. This foundation helped me understand how agile principles can be effectively adapted across various teams and industries.

At Sybo Games, I worked on Subway Surfers and led the Unity Tools Team of 7 developers. We focused on improving workflow efficiency for multiple external game teams. Under the leadership of Jesper Nielsen (LinkedIn), the flavor of agile was among my favorites. Jesper exemplified how to foster high morale and strong buy-in, both of which are crucial to successful agile implementation.

Agile Meetings

Agile Workflow

At Beamable, my work was quite independent from the rest of the team, but I chose to use Scrum as a great way to create clear communication with leadership. This structure allowed me to keep key stakeholders informed while still maintaining the flexibility to work autonomously.

With my team at Moralis, the sprint structure was the shortest I’ve ever experienced, with just 5 days. We had one hour of sprint planning and one hour for the retrospective, leaving over 35 hours to focus solely on the sprint’s goals. While such a short sprint cycle might not suit most teams, it worked well for us in this context.

At Neopets, I experienced the challenges of rapid growth, where the staff size expanded 10x in just five years. The agile practices led Nils Waschkau (LinkedIn) were critical in helping the team scale efficiently while maintaining product quality and team cohesion. My team of 12 developers and I created over 100 mini-games in a single calendar year, thanks to tight communication.

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What’s Next?

This area of my expertise is particularly exciting!

I love to learn & to make an impact with my teams and projects.

Contact me regarding new opportunities that align with my skills and experience.