Managing a Production Group (of high schoolers)

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    • Managing a Production Group (of high schoolers)

      I (not too recently) thought it might be good to gather up all of the programmers at my school into one place. I am currently in high school (and greatly enjoyed the book, by the way).

      We have a project, and set what we all see to be an achievable deadline for the group, however I am curious as to how I should schedule tasks, especially as most people in my group have lives enough to be busy.
      I am not one of them.

      Thank you in advance
    • Tasking a high school group, huh? Tricky. When I was in high school most of my tasks involved finding gas money and tearing tickets at the local movie theater. Oh and as little homework as I could get a away with.

      A couple of things come to mind though.

      Try to choose an achievable goal. For a high school group that hasn't worked together before, maybe a mod of an existing game would be plenty, or perhaps a small puzzle game on a mobile device using an existing mobile engine. If you nail that, choose something a little harder next time. If it falls apart, try something a little less crazy.

      The project should be small enough to require little or no task tracking or organization. A quick plan and assignments on the back of a napkin should do it. If your project doesn't fit on the back of a napkin, maybe it is a little too big!

      Most of all, be flexible with the deadline. By all means have a goal in mind, and give it a good attempt, but don't worry too much when life, dating, game nights, and final exams get in the way.
      Mr.Mike
      Author, Programmer, Brewer, Patriot
    • Thanks for the response, and sorry for the late response.

      I will take your advice, as the group I am working with is pretty much mostly fairly new programmers.

      I will discuss this with them though, I'm sure a mobile game would be fun for them to make. I tend to be the more of the stay up all night programming kind of guy, so I'll guide them the best I can.

      Also I greatly enjoyed your book, I am using the principles from your book (along with a couple others) to pull together a 2d game engine. I only have 6 years under my belt so its always good to have interesting material to read.

      Thanks very much Mr Mike.