Building Your Plane While Flying Production @ Bungie Allen Murray

2. Building Your Plane While FlyingProduction @ BungieAllen Murray

3. What is the point of this talk? • To show how we were able to evolve mature production practices in the middle of a very successful, creative and sometimes chaotic environment while maintaining the culture of the studio.

4. Production History • Halo 1 and Halo 2 were created with minimal Production staff • The role of Producer on Halo 1 and 2 was very different than it is today • On Halo 1 and 2, project management was sometimes handled by discipline leads

5. Why Invest In Production? • Halo 2 experience… • Extremely long crunch • 12-14 hour days, 7 days a week for over 8 months • Personal sacrifice and pain • The team was looking for a new solution

6. How did we do this? (Agenda) • By focusing on Quality First • By focusing on People First • By being extremely Adaptable

7. Quality First

8. Quality First • Flexible approach to scheduling • Non-negotiable Polish • “Planned Crunch”

9. Flexible Approach to Scheduling • We will rip apart the schedule *late* to: • Accommodate ideas that make the game better • Rigorously rework a feature if there is concern the quality isn’t high enough

10. Example: FORGE

11. Example: FORGE • First version of Forge did not come online until 6 months prior to ship • The idea was intriguing enough that we were willing to risk other features to achieve it

12. Quality First: Other Modifiers • How will this decision for quality affect: • Morale • Employee development • Schedules & Budgets • The people who play the game • Example: Saved Films • Nearly cut if not for the passion of the designers and engineers who worked on it

13. Non-negotiable Polish • It is a non-moving component of the schedule • Approximately 2-4 weeks per person • It is not a contingency plan • It is all iteration time • No new content!

14. Planned Crunch • Crunch is a tool that can unite or divide the team • How you communicate a crunch is vital to its success • Communicated in advance • Scope defined and understood • Definitive end

15. Negative Crunch • Crunch is bad when: • It is prolonged • No goal • No visible evidence of progress • Bad Crunch = Producer’s fault

16. Positive Crunch • Crunch is positive when: • It is used sparingly to focus work effort • Is preplanned and has an end that is understood • Good crunch = Team Achievement

17. People first

18. Bungie is Our People

19. Supporting Role • As Producers at Bungie, our focus is on creating the conditions in which the team can do their best work • Also, Producers at Bungie don’t design

20. Supporting Context • There is natural tension in the creative process • Production assists with this conflict resolution • As we evolved our processes in Halo 3, it became apparent there was little accountability for cross-discipline issues

21. Supporting Methodology • Listen First • Gather the data • Make the data honest and the process transparent • Present recommendations

22. Soft Skills Soft Skills are as important as Hard Skills Understanding context is key Most people can be taught the Hard Skills of project management. It’s the innate ability to act smartly, not the rules you follow that is hard to teach

23. adaptability

24. Adaptive Project Management • Putting Quality and People First means: • We invest in processes adapted to the people • We adapt to unfolding views of the game experience • We bring clarity with a range of different methodologies

25. Start with a Framework • Concept Phase: What is the game? Inspiring others • Preproduction: Prove the concepts, find the fun • Production: Building the game, iteration, iteration • Polish: This dial goes to 11 • Release: Get it shipped • Sustain Planning: • DLC, Expansions, Bungie.Net, Community outreach

26. Constantly Shifting Responsibilities • As the project cycle shifts, so do our responsibilities • We need to be able to jump in and work with any team • We rely on our fellow Producers for context

27. A Pragmatic Approach • Each team is approached differently • Each person on the team is approached differently • Producers adapt methods for the appropriate audience

28. Environment Art vs. Mission Design Environment Art Mass Out Architecting Finishing Polish Mission Design Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Paper Design Review Prototype Review Prototype Review

29. Concept Art vs. 3D Art Concept Art … Concept 1 Concept 2 Other Img Detail 1 Detail 2 Other Img 3D Art Graybox 1 Hi Res 1 Polish 1 Graybox 2 Hi Res 2

30. Systems Design vs. Engineering Systems Design Design Doc 1 Design Doc 2 Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 1 Engineering Tasks for 1 Tasks for 2 Tasks for 1 Tasks for 2 Walkup Specific Tasks Bug Fixing

31. Combining the Approaches First Playable Milestone Environment Art Mass Out Architecting Finishing Polish Mission Design Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Concept Art Concept generation Concept generation 3D Art Polish Systems Design Object Object Object Object Object Object Object Object Feature Work Feature Work Feature Work Iteration Iteration Feature Work Iteration Testing / Iteration Engineering Bug fixing Polish

32. Meaningful Milestones • Milestones are feature driven, not date driven • Milestones have a definition that is understood by the team doing the work

33. Everyone Has a Schedule • We believe that all creative tasks can be quantified. • Make this viewable to everyone on the team • Increases communication • Gives visibility • Increases accuracy • Increases accountability • Increases efficiency

34. Flexible Scheduling Technologies • To be useful, the system must have: • Multiple inputs • Unified data source • Single, target output and reporting

35. Current Underlying Tech • MS Project to HTML output • All tasks are eventually put into MS Project • System converts Project files into HTML Web Page Paper Data Excel MS Project Script MS Project

36. Evolving Tech • Future integration with our art and environment pipeline tools • The core philosophy remains the same: • Put information in front of the people • They are responsible for saying when it is wrong and informing changes

37. Production Coverage (H3 preproduction) Team Size: 75 Production Producers: 3

38. Production Coverage(H3 Mid Production) Team Size: 110 Production Producers: 6

39. Production Coverage (H3 End Production to Today) Team Size: 150+ Production Producers: 11 + TBH

40. Case study: halo 3 environment art

41. Campaign Environment Art • Listen First… • Some artists felt the schedule was ‘off’ • “I know I cannot make all of this in 9 months!” • Some artists and designers felt they could just crunch through it • “We shipped Halo 2 – we can do anything!”

42. New Approach to Mission Audits • A systematic walkthrough and evaluation of the art and design in each level • All tasks are quantified and scheduled • This information was used by Creative Leadership and Production to make decisions

43. After the Mission Audits • We were overbooked • Traditional levers to pull: • Add time? • Add staff? • Reduce scope?

44. What Was Cut? Entire Campaign Mission: Guardian Forest

46. Additional Mission Adjustments • 2 Smaller missions merged into Cortana • Large sections of Tsavo Highway were removed • Small section added to Citadel to account for the loss of Guardian Forest

47. Sandbox cuts New Character & Weapon: Guardians

48. Lessons Learned • Production added value by • Listening • Gathering data and applying rigor to the audit process • Presenting recommendations • And working with the team to make final decisions

49. Lessons Learned, cont. • Cuts were made – but it was a positive result because: • Decisions were made much earlier when compared to Halo 1 and 2 • It gave us a realistic schedule that everyone believed in • Provided constraints that allowed us to focus the creative effort • Began an empirical process of project transparency that is now a part of our Studio culture

50. recap