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Design

Development of a Concept
Player or Game Failure
Difficulty Curves

General

PC/Console Dev Differences

MMO Games

A Look at MMO Games
Gameplay Issues
Consider Systems

Working Practices

Introduction
Communication
Bug Reporting
Ambiguity

Game Critiques

Championship Manager
Gran Tourismo 3
Earth and Beyond

Working Practices:  Communication

In this article, I'm talking about intra team, as opposed to outside communication. Most commercial game projects consist of a number of people, ranging from small teams of 5 to 10 people, up to large teams of 30 people or more.  In team projects, communication becomes very important.  This article is about the way that people communicate, as opposed to the actual content and amount of that communication.  

Lack of communication within a team can be a big time waster, and have a big effect on quality.  It causes a number of problems including:

Wasted Effort.  One of the biggest reasons that work has to be redone is a lack of communication between the person doing the work, and the person requiring the work.  Although both people should take responsibility for trying to ensure that the correct work is done, it is all to easy for either to assume that the correct thing is being done without checking.  The usual way this happens is that information is checked before work is started (either by reference to a design or technical document), but then no more communication occurs whilst the work is being done.  As with any problem, the earlier you catch it, the easier it is to correct.

Lack of Concerted Direction.  As  the saying goes, a good team is greater than the sum of the individual parts, and this is as true of software projects as it is of a sports or other team.  However, the reverse is also true.  One of the things that works towards the success of the team (although it is by no means the only thing), is a concerted effort and direction.  Communication is very important for this.  If each person is quietly working on their own, with no idea as to what other people or doing, or how all this is supposed to fit together, then the team's effort is diluted as people are likely to be working towards slightly different goals.  Although the project manager and department leads take some responsibility to avoid this happening, they can never be as effective as the group of individuals in making sure this does not happen.

However, communication can take a variety of forms, and choosing the correct one can help save time in the short and long term. The main areas to consider are:

Timescale.  Some forms of communication give almost instant responses, whilst others can take a significant period of time.  What method of communication you use also affects the perceived urgency of your information supply or request.

Intrusiveness.  A lot of productive development work requires the developer to get "in the zone" - focusing their concentration on the task and hand, to the exclusion of outside interference.  This process requires a fair amount of time to get in to, and constant interruptions mean that this never happens.  It isn't uncommon to finish a day's work, and find you have done very little because of the amount of interruptions that happened, even if the interruptions themselves take little time.  Some people and activities are more affected by this than others.  You have to balance the importance and urgency of the communication with the level of intrusiveness.

Record of Results.  Discussing an issue is one thing, coming to an agreement is another.  But actually remembering what the agreement was, and WHY that decision was made, can be a completely different matter.  Some forms of communication lend themselves towards keeping a record of the decisions made, and why, whilst others do not. 

Type of request.  Sometimes you just need to ask or answer a simple question, and the level of communication is very simple, whereas at other times, a more complicated, two (or more) way conversation needs to take place.

Types of Communication

E-Mail

E-mail is excellent for simple requests, or short discussions which are not particularly time critical.  Although some people read their mail very quickly, others, especially those who are concentrating on their work, may only read their mail once or twice a day, and so e-mail can be quite slow.  However, it is also possibly the most unintrusive of all - you send the mail when it is suitable for you, and the recipient reads it when it is suitable for them.  This allows for people to mull over their response, and is therefore useful when a reply in some depth is required. It also means that you don't distract the recipient from their work.  With e-mail, you also automatically have a record of the decision making process.

Newsgroups

Newsgroups function in a similar way to e-mail, but they have a few slightly different advantages and disadvantages, mainly in scope of readership and responses.  With e-mails, you direct any communication to the exact people that you feel need to know, or can contribute.  With newsgroups, you open the point to anyone who reads.  Sending to a limited number of people tends to be a more effective way of making a decision (arguments involving 20 people can be very time consuming and counter productive), but sometimes better solutions can come from an outside source.  The advantage of newsgroups is that anyone with an interest in a topic can help, and EVERYONE is aware of the result of any decision that is on the newsgroup.  With e-mail, it often happens that the rest of the team not in that particular conversation remain unaware of any progress, with potentially harmful effects.

 ICQ/ Instant Messenger

These methods are good if you need a simple chat, but need a response quickly.  The bad thing about this is that it takes no notice of how busy the recipient is.  Although most systems allow a person to set their current status, it is all to easy to either forget, and leave it on one status, or to just set to "busy" to avoid any interruptions.  Communication is two way, and the recipient shouldn't put too many obstacles in the way.

Direct Contact

Simply  wandering over to a colleague's desk.  Direct contact is excellent because it is less impersonal than either of the above two, and since you are going to that person's desk, you can also see whether they are too busy to be interrupted.  The main bad point with direct contact is that it tends to disturb other people in the room or area.  When people hear a conversation, it can be difficult not to take part, especially if someone has an interest or opinion in the subject being discussed.

Direct contact provides an instant response, and allows for a much larger amount of discussion in a short period of time than any of the written methods.

The biggest advantage of direct contact is that team member actually talk to each other.  Building up a team spirit, and close working relationships rarely happens at opposite ends of a computer terminal.

Phone

Satan's own form of communication within a team, especially in larger, or open plan offices.  There is no method more sure of disturbing everyone in the vicinity.  Disturbing one person who was busy can be damaging.  Disturbing a whole room is crazy.  And this even assumes that there is a person at their desk to answer the phone.  The only thing worse than phones going off in your office is an unanswered phone going off in your office.  As you might be able to tell.  I'm not a fan of phones for intra office communication.

Summary

It should be noted from the above that only e-mail and newsgroups keep an automatic record of the discussion.  With all other methods, it can be useful to send an e-mail or post a newsgroup entry to both ensure that the reasons for a decision are known, and that everyone came out of the discussion with the same conclusion in mind.