ANI110 - Week 04

Week 4 into the project and I’ve now set timelines for the guys to abide by creating a WBS and a GANTT charts – I’ve spoken to them all about the importance of this document and adhering to a schedule because otherwise the risk is that the workload will blow up and we’ll be in serious trouble.

I’ve also been getting them to continue to generate ideas and think about the development stage of the project – the artists are keen to develop their ideas however our story still needs a lot of fleshing out.

It’s been a bit of a struggle to get some of the guys motivated – one of my members is absent more often than not, and the other was struggling last week to get his work up to scratch in terms of both quality and delivery on time – however I’ve spoken with him and he’s on the right track now. This might be due to my inexperience as a competent leader, but we’re both comfortable for now – at least I feel we are – and that’s a good sign that I’m not being overbearing and that he feels the work is fair.

​The other team member who is absent has been a bit of a mystery – I haven’t seen any of his work, or what he’s really capable of. He initially put his hand up for 3D and rendering, but as the weeks move on, I’ve decided that we won’t be relying on that for our project just in case he fails to deliver. Instead I’ve asked him to generate some concept sketches this week for work that he feels he will be able to generate in 3D and render. This will be a good starting point to assess his ability to stick to the timeline and the quality of his work – if the concepts are good and he feels that he can render the accurately, then I’m happy to lend him resources in terms of my time as well as the other guys if necessary. If not, then I’ll pull him off 3D and assign him different work – which will also involve changing he project scope, but as we’re still pre development, we have the time buffer to do so.

We also received a new entrant into our team which now makes us the largest of the 3 teams in the class. I had a group meeting where we welcomed him and had a chat about what he’s comfortable with and what our project scope is. He seemed quite enthusiastic about being on our team and like our project idea – he also seems determined to produce some good work and hopefully if he keeps up that attitude he can help inject some enthusiasm into the rest of the guys now that things are starting to get to the serious part of the project.

I’m doing my best to keep everyone on track and moving the project forward, but it’s an awful lot of work. I know that I’ll continue to make this statement through the term but it’s the truth – there’s a lot of planning and admin work that I’m doing and I hope that it all pays off. If it does, then it’ll be worth it, but if not then I fear I’ll have lost face with the guys. Although I know that this is all part and parcel of the real world. Either way, I’m having fun for now, and I hope that the guys are too.

We’re pitching our idea in its final form this coming week which I need to write the presentation up for – the guys all seem very comfortable with the ins and outs of the idea and the designers have an even greater idea for the details than I! But of course that’s to be expected. Our newest guy will obviously need to catch up, but I have no doubt that he will – I’ve provided him ill all the resources that he’ll need to get his head around the finer details and I’ll do my best by providing everyone with topic points to cover in the presentation to enable even the poorer speakers to deliver a confident talk.

​- Ryan
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