Agility in Serious Games Development with Distributed Teams: A Case Study

This paper describes as a case study the first 12 months of a 2 year project developing a serious game targeted at a number of industrial sectors: aeronautical, automotive, civil construction, software and electronics. The paper presents the devised methodology to address the problems that emerged, mostly associated to the inherent barriers of managing a distributed team with equal participatory roles and responsibilities in the creative process of developing a serious game. Some of the lessons learnt are shared with the reader.

[1]  Klaus-Dieter Thoben,et al.  Training Of Strategic Decisions In Collaborative Networks Through Serious Games , 2006, PRO-VE.

[2]  Jane Grimson,et al.  Software needs engineering - a position paper , 2000, Proceedings of the 2000 International Conference on Software Engineering. ICSE 2000 the New Millennium.

[3]  Roel Wieringa,et al.  A survey of structured and object-oriented software specification methods and techniques , 1998, CSUR.

[4]  P. Paulus,et al.  Performance and Perceptions of Brainstormers in an Organizational Setting , 1995 .

[5]  LeMai Nguyen,et al.  Supporting and monitoring the creativity of IS personnel during the requirements engineering process , 2000, Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[6]  A. Osborn.  Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking , 1953 .

[7]  Pekka Abrahamsson,et al.  New directions on agile methods: a comparative analysis , 2003, 25th International Conference on Software Engineering, 2003. Proceedings..

[8]  R. Baumeister,et al.  Personal narratives about guilt: Role in action control and interpersonal relationships. , 1995 .

[9]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Network-Centric Collaboration and Supporting Frameworks , 2006 .

[10]  Klaus-Dieter Thoben,et al.  User requirements analysis for educational games in manufacturing , 2006, 2006 IEEE International Technology Management Conference (ICE).

[11]  Steve McConnell.  Best Practices: The Art, Science, and Engineering of Software Development , 1998, IEEE Softw..

[12]  M. Diehl,et al.  Productivity loss in brainstorming groups: Toward the solution of a riddle. , 1987 .

[13]  Paul Cunningham,et al.  Exploiting the knowledge economy : issues, applications and case studies , 2006 .

[14]  Leonard A. Annetta,et al.  Serious Games: Incorporating Video Games in the Classroom. , 2006 .

[15]  Kent L. Beck,et al.  Extreme programming explained - embrace change , 1990 .

[16]  William L. Kleb,et al.  Extreme Programming in a Research Environment , 2002, XP/Agile Universe.

[17]  Robert L. Glass,et al.  Software Creativity , 1995 .

[18]  Dennis S. Gouran,et al.  Functional Theory and Communication in Decision-Making and Problem-Solving Groups: An Expanded View , 1996 .

[19]  Frederick P. Brooks,et al.  No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering , 1987 .

[20]  James Robertson,et al.  Eureka! Why Analysts Should Invent Requirements , 2002, IEEE Softw..