Do you set Milestones?

[Grey Alien]

Just finished an article on my blog about planning with time estimates and setting Milestones so that you can deliver a project on time. I hope that you find it useful, let me know your feelings on the matter:

http://www.greyaliengames.com/blog/d...et-milestones/

Of course if you aren't working to a date, setting Milestones is still a great motivational tool.

What techniques do you lot use to deliver a project on time, or if working for yourself do you even bother with setting a time or maybe you prefer to just keep on adding polish until "it's finished"?

Thanks.

P.S. If your get a blank screen in IE 7 scroll down a bit. It's a bug with that browser that I havn't set a date to fix it by ;-)

[Bad Sector]

For me setting milestones is very rare and managing to finish something by a given date even rarer (and when i do, usually it's sucky). The only time scale i use is "pretty soon, almost soon, not soon and late" with the special values "unknown", "tomorrow" and "in a few minutes" :-).

[RinkuHero]

I set a list of goals for each version (v0.1, v0.2) but I don't usually have a set date for each version. For instance, I might say "when all the balance issues are done, it's v0.9" or "when all the graphics are in, it's v0.8".

It also helps that I release frequent playtesting versions to my small army of playtester friends, so even though I don't set dates I'm motivated to reach the next playtesting version so that those people can get a chance to see the changes.

[Grey Alien]

lol @ badsector.

Yeah it is motivating releasing a new version and showing your testers or colleagues.

[Roman Budzowski]

We have one universal term for big tasks: two weeks. For small tasks it's 15 minutes :D

Setting real and achievable deadlines is freaking hard - there's no metrics for games like we have for apps (function points).

cheers
Roman

[Staton_Richardson]

Here's a great tool for those who want to set watermarks.
My time is torn between my day job and family. It's hard to clearly
define watermarks. I do have a set plan of things I want to complete
before moving on to the next item and as much as I want to
entertain feature-creep I have to stick to feature-lock to save myself
from myself.

This tool would be g reat if you are managing a team. It allows
you to predict a variable completion time based on the completion
of elements in the project.

http://www.openworkbench.org/

[electronicStar]

I dont set milestones.
I keep a rather good idea of the plan and the time and ressources needed for each tasks and which ones are critical.
I've released a few projects, one of them was a rather complex RPG prototype for a contest (with a date limit), I managed to get it out on time because I can make a fairly good estimation of the time/ressources necessary for each part. When time gets short I cut on the less critical parts.
If you can estimate time/ressource requirements with good accuracy then you'll have a good advantage.
I don't set myself strict milestones because my projects generally remain very stretched out and non-functional while I'm tweaking their inner workings and they take shape at the last moment.

[Cartman]

I've just started setting milestones this week, so I do something every day. I use MS Project to manage them, since I've had alot of experience with the program.

The main thing for me is making sure I have the discipline to check it every day and complete some of the tasks in it. Any tool, I've found, is only as good as your dedication to use it each and every day.

[Coyote]

I love setting milestones. It's truly awe-inspiring to see the speed at which I miss them.

[Grey Alien]

haha so a few different views. This is good. That's the thing with making games is you need to leave room for creativity for sure, but how much? Will you *ever* finish it?

My article is aimed more at completing a piece of work on time when you've promised someone else (or yourself). Admittedly it's easier to set and meet milestones for something like business software where you have a defined problem and solution and there is less room for polish/creativity. Although I have to be careful saying that as sometimes I've needed very creative solutions to meet a customer's requirements and also you can sell them the extra polish if they've got the budget ;-)

[gdunbar]

I absolutely set milestones; there's something very satisfying about moving a milestone into the "completed" section of my plan document. In general they take about a month or two to complete, but I don't schedule them because this is just a hobby, and I don't want to drive myself into depression when I miss the schedule badly. :-)

Geoff

[TunaBreeze]

I am working by myself on my first 3D game, and I do have min-milestones so to speak. I have a To Do list. The list contains the past present and future tasks. For me personally it has been a great motivator. Knowing that I've completed a lot of tasks recently keeps my mind off the fact that I have a very long way to go before I even get my game working.

It also keeps me pretty well organized. Keeping a list of tasks makes things pop in to my mind - I read something in the list and realize I need to add something else to my list and do that first before proceeding with what I was going to do originally. Really keeps me on track which I think has served me better than just making a small list of more generic milestones.

[Qitsune]

I set milestones when I do work for customers, I should do that when I do personel work too but I'm way too lazy. I have a good track record of not missing milestones though.

[TunaBreeze]

I love setting milestones. It's truly awe-inspiring to see the speed at which I miss them.

Lol. I think you're confusing milestones with timelines.

[MrQ]

I love setting milestones. It's truly awe-inspiring to see the speed at which I miss them.

Lol thats gold.

I have been setting milestones for my casual game but because we all have day jobs we are constantly re-schedualing them :P

I use hansoft at my day job, it's a very proffesional project managment tool. It's probably overkill for a small indie project but it certaintly helps organise larger team projects.
http://www.hansoft.se/hansoft_php/index.php

My current milestone arrangments at home are simply planned in our forum and then marked off depending on the stage they are at. I have broken our milestones into about 5 sections from prototype to Gold.

[Josh1billion]

I set some major work categories (i.e. 20% monster programming, 20% tower programming, 15% GUI programming...) and base my project completion percentage off of that.

Also what I do is I write my next goals, step-by-step objectives you could say, on my whiteboard, then check them off (and sooner or later erase them) as they're completed. I started doing that as a way to keep track of what my next move would be when I had to stop working for the day, but another benefit has resulted: a sense of accomplishment, and I can look back at recent checkmarks and see what progress I've made recently.

Examples of goals I put up there are stuff like..

"Create ____ class [with a list of some class members]"
"Create monster health bar, tower completion bar" [this one is currently on the board and checked off! yay]
"-add TowerData::DrawToolTip() - call this right before drawing 'hovering' button in tray" [this is the next thing I have to do when I open up VC++]

So this works pretty well for me. Sometimes I'll sketch some stuff up on the whiteboard too.. towers, monsters.. once I even draw Tupac! :)

But believe it or not, a whiteboard can really help you out in your project development. It did for me anyway.

[tolworthy]

I set a lot of milestones, but (since I'm working alone) the order that I achieve them constantly changes. Small milestones all run in parallel. E.g. coding the the story, generic conversations, backgrounds, secondary story, detailed screen regions, animations, etc. The BIG milestones, the ones set in stone, are those that involve other people. E.g. my game WILL be in alpha test by late May. The teaser video WILL be online by late September, and the finished game WILL be available on December 15th. The only variable is whether I am a nervous, sleep deprived paranoid wreck by that point.

[Bad Sector]

I have this slight idea that some people here think that the word "milestone" is a synonym of the word "goal" :-P.

[tolworthy]

I have this slight idea that some people here think that the word "milestone" is a synonym of the word "goal" :-P.

It is.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/DictionaryResults.aspx?lextype=2&refid=561580498[/url] ]
milestone (n)
Synonyms: sign, signpost, indicator, mark, marker, milepost
Synonyms: landmark, highlight, high point, target, objective, goal, achievement, record, aim, purpose, ambition

Any long distance runner knows the best way to reach the big goal is to set little goals. The only difference with an indie game is the ground is constantly shifting. So the first mile may take ten miles, the third mile may come next, and the second and fourth miles arrive together. :)

[Grey Alien]

Yeah if you just look at the end product of a finished, tested, release game you may get daunted. Mini goals/milestones will really help you to achieve this. It also helps if you enjoy the "run" i.e the process along the way too :-)

[AJirenius]

Are you experience big loss of enthusiasm right after reaching a milestone or sendinng away a compile for testing?
I frequently see myself doing stupid things like hanging on the forums for hours or playing stupid flashgames immediatly after letting people test the new version. Especially when "waiting for comments".

If I were effective right after a milestone I swear I could shorten my development time with 15-20%... but I am not :(

[electronicStar]

In my mind "setting a milestone" meant to release an intermediary version of the game at a given date.
That's why I said I didn't set milestones, of course I set myself goals with a todo list, everybody does that.
I just don't set delays for them and I don't force myself to release finished versions at regular dates.

[Grey Alien]

If I was making the game for myself I might not set as rigorous milestones (I had to for my seasonal games though), but as my current game is for someone else, I need to hit the milestones or die! Also I do release a version at each milestone for comments but meanwhile I code the next bit.

[ChrisP]

Are you experience big loss of enthusiasm right after reaching a milestone or sendinng away a compile for testing?
I frequently see myself doing stupid things like hanging on the forums for hours or playing stupid flashgames immediatly after letting people test the new version. Especially when "waiting for comments".

I have exactly this problem. It's become worse as I approach the end of the project more and more closely (and asymptotically!).

It's not that there aren't things that I could/should be doing. There's plenty to do, but my motivation takes a big hit. Especially since my testers aren't giving me any feedback any more... I think I need new testers! But of course to go and recruit/pay some more of them requires motivation. Arrrgh, vicious cycle! ;)

This wouldn't be such a big problem if I wasn't quite as busy in my other two lives.