Project management is a skill that I’ve picked up through bits and pieces, successes and failures, trial and error. You need to realistically assess what a project requires: How many resources? What skills? How many hours? You need to make a plan that will get all those ingredients together in the right order and on the right schedule. You need to keep that plan moving on pace, and you need to be able to adapt when that plan proves unworkable. When parts of the plan require more work than initially estimated, you need to be able to keep the whole thing moving, and still moving toward the same goal.
As both the game designer and the project manager, it’s easy to get distracted and lose sight of what I need to be working on right now while planning the bigger picture. One thing I use to keep myself focused is an array of lists. Within a few days of a playtest, I make a list of all feedback, and categorize each item as something to change, or something to consider. I don’t make the changes at that point, but my list is all ready for me when I come back to it. Likewise, ass I’m writing, if I change the way a rule works, I don’t open up InDesign and change it on the rules summary sheet. I put it on the list of changes to that sheet. Or if an idea for a sidebar pops into my head while I’m writing a rule, I’ll add it to my list of sidebars, with a few words to remind myself later what I’m thinking about. It allows me to keep focused on the task at hand. Likewise, I have a list of potential topics for this blog.
The other way my lists help me is that, realistically, I don’t have the same skills available all the time. I find game text very taxing to write, so I need to prioritize it on early weekend mornings, or very early weekday evenings, when my brain is freshest. Entering simple changes or laying out sheets or cards is easier for me, so I can work on those tasks at off-peak hours when I have less energy. My lists make that possible.
Status
I wrote the troublesome “overview of phases” section three different ways. I don’t particularly like any of them, but I’m certain I’ll be able to edit together their strongest points into a single overview.
Goals for Next Week
Edit the single overview and write out two of the specific phases.