Overview
At CG Lumberjack we’ve tried essentially every kind of management/team structure for developing software. We’ve even been part of initiatives to implement SCRUM/Agile to the letter. After a lot of experimentation here’s our current recipe for success when building out code teams.
Team Structure
Offense: This Team Architects and Writes the code
- Product Owner
- Developer
- Developer
Defense: This team Ensures the Developers can continue to write code
- Project Manager
- Customer Service Artist
- Defensive Developer
- Help Desk Manager
Job Descriptions
Product Owner
The Product Owner is responsible for the product being created by the scrum team.
Project Manager
Project Manager in our context manages Jira according to the direction of the Product Owner, The Project Manager will also handle *most client meetings other than meetings designated for scrum planning strategy and design, those will be handled by the product owner.
Developer
Writes code. At CG Lumberjack our developers handle all APIs for all plugins, and are expected to write code in C++ and python for the most part, We have specialists for certain things but part of the core architecture of alchemy makes it easy for developers to write code for all DCCs.
Customer Service Artist (CSA)
We typically hire generalists for this position, artists who are comfortable in many different aspects of production. They test all the code, write all the documentation, and have a disposition toward customer service so they will be the first to help artists and supervisors use the tools that have been created and ensure their satisfaction
Defensive Developer
When we get to a phase where we are delivering a lot of code we have a “defensive” developer that handles the majority of the bug fixes that come in on code that is live in production to ensure that the 2 core developers are always working on new features. This developer is also there to fill the development role when non-sprint requests of a high urgency come in from production.
Help Desk manager
At a certain stage – typically on large projects, so many requests are coming in that the 7th member of the scrum team – the “help desk manager” is needed. This role ensures that help desk tickets are completed properly and works with the project manager to decide which tickets should be worked on in each sprint.
Hiring Order
The Full Scrum team is a team of 7, but obviously every studio can’t afford all that at once. So if you’re building your team from scratch you’ll want to go in the following order:
- Product Owner
- Project Manager
- Developer 1
- Customer Service Artist
- Developer 2
- Developer 3
- Help Desk Manager
Summary
This structure has virtually eliminated the problems I’ve experienced on most productions I’ve ever worked on. It eliminates the problems nearly all clients communicate to us when we start a project.
- Unsure what pipeline department does
- Why can’t we get what we ask for by the end of the sprint?
- Assumptions that all pipeline development will take longer than the current show will be in production
- No Documentation
- No Reporting/Transparency
Follow these principles and you’ll get your pipeline in great working order in no time!
