Scrumbled Eggs

I noticed that some of the staff members that work with Richard Garriott, at least one, have some SCRUM skills. We all know the famous dish “scrambled eggs”, and that’s what I believe what we are seeing here.

Richard came out with an essay on what the new new eletronic RPG should be about. Later on, he lauches a project called “Shroud of the Avatar”. We know little about its storyline, all that we are seeing are mechanics explained and concept art that do not have a clear meaning. The next “Ultima Series” game? Nah, I don’t buy it. He is saying that so we feel more confident and relaxed about what he is doing. We are not ready for the real thing.

I am a project manager and I believe in Richard. Scrum is a great methodology and I have written some articles about in the past, so why not use it in a new project? We use Scrum when working with innovation, when we have to build a software that has no benchmark but still has a limited budget. Every week developers meet and redefine goals based on what they’ve done in the previous week. Every day they have a stand-up meeting to discuss the work of the day. That can go in different ways, but I want people that don’t understand much about project management to have an idea about how Scrum works.

So, Richard is the product owner. He has the feeling, he believes that he knows what he wants. He tells his team about his vision, they share that dream with him and they work each part of that feeling and try to make a small product out of it every week. Did you get it? There is no such thing as a final definition of what the game is going to be about because nobody knows. Are you afraid? You shouldn’t, because we are living the dawn of a new gaming era.

Ok… fire at will! Share your thoughts!