ENGRC 5152 - Communication Strategies for Games Management and Creation

Spring. 1 credit. Letter grades only.

Corequisite: CS 5152 or INFO 5152. Permission of instructor required. Co-meets with ENGRC 4152.

T. Nathans-Kelly.

As students develop mobile video games in large teams, graduate level students will concurrently be spearheading project management and communication efforts, often with a co-leader. These tasks will be accompanied by specialized training. As active parts of their team, participants will be writing documentation to a variety of audiences for a myriad of technical, business, and design needs. Together, students in their teams will write workflow documents, specifications, planning, marketing, video scripting, and project management pieces that have the specific task of always moving the team’s work forward. The communication tasks are not extras; rather, they are integral to the game dev process. Iterations and deep revising will be part of this process, with inputs from both the CS instructor and the communication instructor. As well, students will hone their skills for team stand-up presentations.

Outcome 1: Students will be able to plan, write, revise, and hone written documentation that forwards the team’s identified goals for coordinated coding, design, and implementation of a working game.

Outcome 2: Students will be able to demonstrate prowess with project management and the communication strategies for equitable, distributed, and iterative development of a finalized project.

Outcome 3: Students will be able to exhibit qualities of team leadership including conflict resolution, coordinated planning with a co-leader, communication to sub-teams and instructors/TAs, timely execution of planning elements, and–at times–quality control of assignments.