Story of how you could save a dying software project

Brand G. got his start in the game industry working at MicroProse, famous for classics such as Civilization, the X-COM series, Masters of Orion, Pirates, and Dark Earth (one of my personal favorites). MicroProse was also known for its military simulation games, such as Gunship, Pacific Air War, M-1 Tank Platoon, and Falcon 4.0. Brand was brought on to work on such a simulation, European Air War.

European Air War was doomed. It was four years in development and not even close to being ready to ship. In Brand’s first month at MicroProse, the whole programming team on European Air War quit, sensing that their project was on the verge of cancellation. Not only that, but everyone had grown tired enduring the stress of the weekly “why-shouldn’t-we-cancel-this-project” meetings with the executives. In these meetings, they’d have to choose their words carefully when answering the executives’ tough questions about the budget as well as major bugs in the system such as…

Why are the planes flying backwards sometimes?
Well, uhh, a little known thing about Nazi technology developed in World War I…
Why do the wings come off the plane whenever you fire the guns?
Uhh, err…
Why does the plane bounce up and out of the earth’s atmosphere when you crash into the ground?
Umm, in high-speed collisions like that it’s not totally unreasonable that a plane’s velocity torque rotary girder viscosity…

These meetings were tough. It almost seemed as though the execs were only keeping the project alive for the sadistic pleasure they took in watching the developers squirm. And among the bugs mentioned above, there were mountains more. For instance, planes couldn’t take off or land. At all. Well, you could try to land, but that would cause the bug where the plane would bounce off the ground and into outer space. So to address the issue, all missions started out mid-flight and wouldn’t require (or even allow) you to land.

Another fun bug caused the enemy AI to do your work for you. A rogue enemy plane would suddenly reject his mother country and start shooting down his own teammates. That is, until his wings fell off the plane since he was firing his guns. Then he’d kamikaze his plane into the ground, which would launch the plane into outer space that the MicroProse executives probably didn’t find nearly as funny as I do.

Brand would stress out about defending the game at the weekly meetings, but that didn’t mean that he thought concerns about European Air War’s progress were unfounded. Facing a mountain of bugs and a project ready for the chopping block, he was relieved when another developer was added to the team, effectively halving the abuse Brand would have to deal with on a weekly basis. We’ll call the new developer “Tim.”

Tim knew what he was getting into when he came aboard the project. He knew about the bugs, about the budget, and about the impending cancellation of the whole thing. And with the major issues, you’d figure he’d start with any one of them. Maybe the one with the wings falling off whenever guns were fired. Especially considering the game is called “European Air War.” If the wings (“air”) and guns (“war”) come off the plane, the game title should just be reduced to “European,” or perhaps “European Wingless Plane Amidst Nazi Battle Simulator.” You could start up a game and watch Nazis shoot eachothers’ planes down until yours crashed.

With all of the bugs he could get started on, he decided it was necessary to add a new feature instead. He developed a camera system that would focus on anything “cool” happening near the player. For instance, one plane shakes another with a delicate evasive maneuver. Or it’d mount to a bomb right as a B-17′s bay was opening, following its descent onto the earth. Or it’d follow a plane being shot down, ablaze and spiraling toward the ground, engines sputtering.

The “Cool Cam” was cool. But it didn’t change the fact that the game was almost completely broken. Brand wanted to confront Tim about bug priority and all of the code he was toiling away to debug, but held his tongue. No one could save the project at this point anyway.

At the next week’s meeting with management, the air felt heavy. With each passing week the execs were seeing money hemorrhaged into a dying project that they’d had a full team on for four years. Tim started up the game and played carefully to avoid the obvious bugs. Getting a double whammy of tough questions (“How overbudget is this project?” and “Why shouldn’t we cancel this right now?”), Tim made sure his plane was level and flying evenly and let go of the joystick and hit the cool cam button.

Brand sat there silently, watching the monitor. Tim turned toward the execs, about to stumble through an answer they probably wouldn’t accept. The room was silent, save for the steady hum of the plane’s engines coming out of the computer speakers. Suddenly, the camera zoomed in on an explosion, following a flaming plane barreling toward the earth, then the focus moved slightly to another plane quickly evading the flaming shell. Tim took the controls again when the execs lobbed another tough question about bugs they’d made no progress in fixing. Again, Tim leveled the plane and hit the cool cam button. And again, he didn’t have to answer because everyone was fixated on the screen.

Tim’s “cool cam” saved European Air War. It went from a money-leaking embarrassment to a top-tier release for MicroProse. The weekly meetings got easier, more developers were brought on, and the team managed to put together one hell of a game. It reviewed well after its 1998 release and is still a popular game for history buffs. And it probably wouldn’t have been released if not for a programmer that knew what the project needed most; the cool cam.

From TheDailyWTF.com

Case Facilitation

Today was the day that I have been worried out. I know myself that I am not a very good speaker in front of audiences, and I had the luck of being in the first group to conduct a case facilitation during IS101, Seminar on Information System Management. We spent lots of effort in this, rehearsing and rehearsing, but ultimately we could not anticipate what points that classmates would mention during the course of our discussion. I also initiated the idea of giving out free lollipops for those who participated and thank you my sister for helping me shop for the sweets.

During yesterday’s rehearsal I was pretty nervous, and my face turned red the moment I stood up to share my part. After going through nearly 4 drafts of prepared questions and anticipated answers, I decided to just leave it to the class to provide me with the content for my part of the case discussion.

Today, before the case facilitation, I told myself to to put on a mask. Since weikiat can’t speak well, let me pretend to be acting as someone who can. I went up, the whole thing was a blur, and I was done with the discussion even before I know it. I know, I went too fast, and weiyi could detect shivers in my voice, but looking at the peer reviews right now, I felt happy that we had done a good job.

Here are some extracts of the peer reviews.

Case presented was very interactive and presenters are able to get the audiences to input their comments and views on the case discussion itself. Most of the speakers presented well and covered the essential topics and points that are brought up in the PSA case.

Good initiatives to make the class interactive by using sweets as a motivation factor. Highlighted the key points of the PSA report though I was hoping to see more of CITOS. Nonetheless, the team had set a high benchmark for the remaining teams.

I believe the case facilitation went well as well. It would be good if the first speaker cuts down on his “Errrr”. Other than that, the discussion went pretty well, this can be evident by the responses from the class. Just a feedback, the sweets given in class might have serve as a little distraction at certain point. Overall, the team managed to lead us to discuss on the case with the questions asked by them.

I feel that the presentation was a bit rush but nevertheless the job did a great job in explaining the case through engaging the whole class with sweets.

I felt that not enough information was brought by the team to get the class to fill in more details. Like statistics or numbers to show us how great or bad the situation is etc.

I personally feel it was good on the case presentation. Key points were touched on and elaborated. Perhaps a point for improvement would be writing on the board neatly for better presentation.

I personally felt that group 7 did a rather excellent case facilitation today. The idea of rewarding class participation greatly helped the class to be more active in joining the debate and discussion. In terms of clarity, I believe most of the group members were able to bring out the case to the class. There were points of time where the presenters were unable to get the right information from the audience but overall I would say thumbs up for the group for their first attempt!

I strongly believe the overall group has done a pretty good job at diverting the focus point of the class, in the right direction, and providing a good learning curve through the simple questions asked.

They have displayed a very good and simplified sense of the case study, and had brought forth very good key pointers which allowed me to better understand the case and the overall picture of how PSA functions and operates.

Great job guys! =)

I think group 7 did a great job in case facilitation although some group members spoke too fast and sometimes made it hard for me to catch what they were trying to explain. Otherwise I think they put a lot effort into this case facilitation and understood the topic well. To comment overall, I think the group needs to improve on organizing the parts and to explain more clearly on the points they are trying to make.

I think that they were good considering that they were the first group and they do not have any thing or any one to model after. I think that wei kiat, saurabh and aisyatus were very good at getting the class to response. I think eaint should try to maintain more eye contact.

I think their way to present is creative, in the sense they just did not have many slides and got class participated involved. They summaries some key concepts from the case study and helped us reviewed the case.

Interactive. Good motivation by offering sweets to answer questions. Case being presented was clear. Issues dealt covers whats written in the notes.

It is very clear in their elaborating the PSA case and they did communicate with the class to get the target.

Nice initiative of giving out sweets during the facilitation. But apart from that, I think the team did quite well by trying to point out the key factor and points of the case study. Not much to complain about except i think Eanit might speak a bit too softly thru out the last part.

Overall I feel that they have done well. I especially like how they used the whiteboard instead of powerpoint and their idea of giving out sweets to encourage participation.
Perhaps Saurabh covered too much as compared to his groupmates.
Eaint was a little too soft.

Overall, the discussion was constructive and helped understanding. The idea of giving out lollipops to those who have attempted to try and participate in the discussion was great. However, members should organize the points and plan in a more proper way when writing down the information on the whiteboard to prevent a mess which might cause misunderstanding and confusion.

Saurabh tend to speak a little too fast, it would be better if you could slow down abit. Great job trying to link the problems PSA faced and the solutions answering to these problems! (weikiat: this part was mine )Thanks for the sweets too!

Team 7 adopts a ‘free lollipop’ for every participation by the class. An interesting way to spice the class participation.
They also did well in terms of bring the main gist of the case to the class, and guiding the answers out of the class by prompting back suggestive questions.
However, improvements can be made by using more ‘props’ in class, instead of just using the whiteboard. In addition, the way they write down the key points on the board are a little over the place and messy. Powerpoint slides are also a little dull. Improvements can be done in these areas.

Team 7 generally dissected the case well into the various sections, but I felt they could be more organised in presenting and showing the linkage between the facts to aid in understanding.

Team 7 have facilitated very well. They are very engaging and managed to aid me in analysing PSA’s case. They have covered a lot of IT solutions as well as the competitive edge of PSA.

Team 7 presented tty the case on PSA pretty well, and made it feel like a class room session similar to last week.

The case facilitation today was very interesting which allows me to know more about the business processes of PSA. Having discussion with the class helps to generate more ideas that can be shared among the class. Additionally, the group members were very well-organised and structured.

The case facilitation was very interactive and it got every student much more involved. As the mood of facilitation was much lighter with comparison to the usual lecture, more students opened up and allowed us to have much more insights and perspectives. Very well organized as well.

The case was presented in a simple manner, which was good as it made understanding the article easier. The article was not easily understood as there were many terms that I was unfamiliar with, but the group made the article understandable. However, the presenters moved onto their next points too quickly, which may result in some peers being unable to follow or to give more input. A slower pace would give more students a chance to participate, or even calling on some who are inactive in speaking out would be beneficial to them.

The facilitation was clear and managed to involve the whole class in the discussion. It wasn’t too serious and rather laid back.
However, I found that the powerpoint slides weren’t really needed at all because I was too busy concentrating on what the presenters were writing on the board.

The facilitators did a good job in leading the facilitation and having interaction with the class.

The group is nice to give out sweets,a boost for an early morning session.They managed to drive the class as a whole to come out with ideas for portnet.however i am kind of confused when they initially talk about the geographical constrains. It took me some time to get to their points. Some points are clearly stated during their facilitation which is appreciated, thanks a lot.

The group was useful in helping us understand the case at the higher level. The constant questioning enabled us to think throughouly, read more carefully into the readings for more detailed information. Also, the generousity of the group in buying us sweets as incentives to spaek up in class definitely help to keep the class alive, as well as help us with our class participation. haha well done! =)

The interaction between the facilitators and the class was great! Using the lollipops as an incentive to get the class to answer worked Saurabh started the presentation off well as he was able to command the audience’s attention. Wei Kiat added much humour to the presentation with some of his antics which I felt was good Eaint and Aisya were clear in presenting the class views on the board. Overalll, great faciliatation

The sweets were a very innovative idea, though it was somewhat distracting when the facilitator is speaking and lollipops are passed around. The group did a good job in their allocation of work, breaking down the discussion into various parts and suming it up together.

The team did a great job explaining how PSA came about and how they expanded in a very interactive way. Some improvements could be visual aids and examples of similar corporations. More variety of sweets next time! Good job!

The team drew mind maps onto the whiteboard to show the business processes of the case, PSA and discuss with the class.Instead of spoon feeding the class with answers, the team uses an innovative way to facilitate class participation, which is to give away sweets for every answer given. This resulted in one had to really think about the questions and come out with an answer for the “sweet incentive.” It’s all right when one gives the wrong answer and the team will still give him the “sweet incentive” for attempting to answer the questions.

The whole job was very impressive. The facilitators were very confident about their performances. The process, they used by giving lollipop to the student who answers their questions, was also very fascinating. I liked their performances.

There weren’t much discussion on business strategies, challenges etc. besides highlighting the key points. The presentation started pretty well, gradually went down but reached a somewhat clear conclusion.

They integrated the whiteboard with powerpoint slides with minimal words. Most of the explainations were written on the whiteboard as they try to facilitate the discussion of the case like how a lecturer will. It was great as it enables the class to interact and when they jot down our points on the board, they made us feel like we are really in the discussion. Also the team has a very clear understanding of the case thus being able to come up with points which we may have missed. Honestly, the sweets made my day so hopefully other groups who are presenting the following weeks come up with goodies to reward those who participate.

They lead us well through the case study as they probe and let us think into deeper thoughts instead of directly giving us the expected response. The giving out of lollipop is a good way of encouraging participation.

They were great in getting the class to participate and ensured everyone was paying attention to the case they presented. However, I thought the pointers mentioned by the class should have already be listed in the presentation slides as the writings on the blackboard were clustered all over. If you miss a portion of the presentation, I might get lost in nowhere’s land. Otherwise, the presentation was great!

This case facilitation has helped many of our peers to speak up and contribute their opinions. Contributions of opinions in such a manner engages everyone in a active discussion and this gives us an idea of how future case discussions will be like. Initially I thought it will be difficult to hold a case discussion in a class of over forty people, but it had turned out to be interesting and it allows everyone to participate in one way or another, at the very least keeping our minds thinking. The facilitation was carried out in quite an orderly manner at the beginning, but towards the second half everyone was freely voicing out whatever they had in mind. This could have prevented some people who are less vocal from speaking. Hence case facilitators can help these people, maybe by allowing them a chance to speak by directing questions to certain individuals who haven´t had a chance to talk, so as not to be overshadowed by others who are more bold whom speak out often. Overall I think it was a good effort by the team.

Today case facilitator was very new, whereby the team fully utilizes the board & PowerPoint slide, I was expecting a debut session for it. The idea of disturbing sweets when the audience gives feedback was also very creative, which will give the class to come up with more question to make the session more lively.

for a start, the use of sweets to attract participation and gather opinions was a good move – especially for a lesson early in the morning.

weikiat was a dynamic and enthusiastic presenter, generating lots of creative ideas.

The facilitation team has helped me understood the essence of the PSA success factors and its history within a short period of time, summarising what i have read in the thick 20 page case study. thumbs up to them!

very interactive! It was an excellent recap to the PSA case.

However, i believe that there should have been more explanations in terms of what exactly portnet is. I think it would’ve been more complete that way. Also, it would be interesting if you added a section on all that PSA has achieved today, in 2009! yupp, thats just a suggestion!

On the whole, well explained and well done! Thanks for the presentation. I enjoyed it!

Thank you people! Will bear all these in mind and try to improve in my/our future presentations!

The irritations of having IT “know how”

This is a typical msn conversation, has happened to me many many times already.

First, being polite contacts who don’t talk to me unless they need my help, they will start with this standard opening.

TheGuy@hotmail.com said (9:38 AM):

u create using php ? is it diffcult?

what kind of software or programming u used? its take how long?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

php

made in 2 days

use notepad.

TheGuy says:

wow

so how is the hit rate like?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

not sure nv check lol

its released for fun

TheGuy says:

hehe

is it hard?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

hm how do u define hard

TheGuy says:

does it take alot of sKills to do such website?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

everything can be learnt from the internet

TheGuy says:

u r still in army?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

ord loh starting uni soon

TheGuy says:

so u kinda free now?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

working

TheGuy says:

as?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

clerk

TheGuy says:

ohh

when u starting sch?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

aug

TheGuy says:

ohh

y u work as clerk?

how is the pay like?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

easy pay

1200 nia

but i slack like mad

i made sgzap during office hours

TheGuy says:

lol

u still do php programming for site?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

unless i hav new ideas, no

TheGuy says:

what u mean by new ideas?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

like things to improve etc lor

After that, the main question would come…

TheGuy says:

hmm…

then if i need some assistance to finish the website… will yr charge be very expensive?

i have a website.. still quite some way to completion.. i need some help to complete it…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

link?

TheGuy says:

not yet up online…

my partner is handling it currently… as he is working full time.. the progress is quite slow..

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

well i’m working full time too

TheGuy says:

well… since u “slack” so much.. perhaps u can devote more time to it…

btw.. i am newbie to programming…

is it easy for u to “join” in… on where he is doing…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

think v hard, since its quite busy now

and i’m working on other things

i intend to start one more personal project b4 uni

TheGuy says:

then its fine..

btw are u earning via advertising thru the sgzap?

And then I would give my standard warning, in case they do something silly..

TheGuy says:

such website.. can earn u how much actually?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

of course not..

its a wrong idea to think of starting a website as a mean of earning money

lately everyone is thinking that

TheGuy says:

i do have a few doubts on that..

how do the advertising of clicking.. how they pay u?

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

those are the lowest paying way

u wnat to make money from the internet u approach advertisers yrself

TheGuy says:

hmm…

Weikiat – SgZap.com says:

with a middle man u dun earn muchj

Time to dao.

Sorry for being dao… well.. seriously too many Singaporean youths are hatching the make money on the internet dreams, even those who have no idea what they are doing.