Devlog #5: Scheduling Work

Why is scheduling important?

The main benefit of scheduling work prior to production is organization. Each team member needs to know their specific tasks, deadlines, and dependencies. Establishing a schedule at the start of a project is key for making those things clear to the team. If a project begins and people have no idea what they're supposed to be working on at what stages, then the team will either get no work done or get work done in a completely wrong way. Schedules really do save projects.

How have I been scheduling work?

When it comes to scheduling my own work, I've mainly been assigning myself deadlines on assignments and deliverables with Trello. It's important to refer to the deadlines of milestones when giving yourself personal deadlines, so that you can ensure you have enough time to meet back up with the team and prepare for the milestone itself. Speaking of my team, I also like to schedule my own work while taking into account the deadlines of my other team members. If we all decide to have a meeting one day for example, then I'll make sure to set my due date to before the meeting, ensuring I have something good to show to the group.

How can my scheduling process improve?

I feel like the next big step I need to take to get better at scheduling is to get better at making schedules for the long term, rather than the short term. Right now, a lot of the deadlines I'm assigning for myself are related to deliverables that are due relatively soon. The biggest weakness I feel exists, as a result, is that my schedules cannot account for things like delays, or if something takes longer to finish than initially expected. Because the deadline is already so close, there isn't really any room to make up for the lost time. I feel like once I start establishing more schedules over a longer period, then I'll get better about that sort of thing, and my "producer skills" will improve pretty dramatically.