Introduction to project management and teamwork + design documentation

What you will learn
Absolute Beginner Project Management
-Plan projects in the real-time development cycle
-Manage projects in the real-time development cycle
Summry
Most jobs in the design and development world require teamwork and will use project management and planning tools to ensure successful project delivery. In this tutorial, you’ll be introduced to key concepts and best practices used for project planning, production phases, project management, and working in teams.

stolin unity design doc

because its stolen  here's a link to where I got it
https://connect-prd-cdn.unity.com/20201117/bb422f61-9b42-4521-9828-910aae22e39c/Example%20of%20Project%20Charter.pdf

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so ig this is what it would look like :D

Stolen Unity Design doc v2

again since its stolen heres the link

https://connect-prd-cdn.unity.com/20201117/99fd6c6b-0d44-42f5-9373-eb8a1887cacf/Project%20Design%20Doc%20TEMPLATE%20-%20[GDOC].pdf

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1.Overview

Project management and teamwork are often referred to as “soft skills” for design and development roles. Although project management can get technical, and there are several different project management methodologies you might encounter, it primarily takes teamwork — including communication and organization skills — to be a good project manager. Effective project management and teamwork involves:

In this tutorial, you’ll explore some introductory best practices for managing projects and working in teams.

2.Recap the phases of production

Individuals, teams, companies, and organizations will each have their particular methods for project management, but generally most projects break down into phases. 

As you explored when learning about the real time production cycle, typically the phases of production are: 
    1. Pre-production: The work done before full-scale production begins, such as planning, prototyping, pipeline setup, and initial designs.
    1. Production: Creation of the product and assets within it, including the creation of final 2D images and 3D models, audio, lighting, and user experience.
    1. Post-production: Work done after the final product appears to be complete, including quality assurance (QA), editing, testing, bug fixing, and final polishing.
  1. Operations: Ongoing work after a product has been released to keep it running, such as sales, monetization, updates, and continued maintenance.

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Properly planning for each phase of the production cycle is crucial when you need to deliver a project that is on time and works as expected.

3.Overview of project planning

hen working on projects, you need to plan appropriate schedules, manage time, communicate, and collaborate. Even if you’re working on a project independently, it’s likely that you’ll be communicating with others at some point in the production process, especially when engaging in user testing.
Let’s explore some guidance for successfully completing and delivering projects, as an individual or member of a larger team.
Documentation and tracking

Documentation plays a critical role in project management. A design document acts as a single source of truth, where you can record the specific requirements for the experience that you want to create. The design document also supports producers and project managers to track design and development progress. 

When managing projects, consistently use design documents in the following ways to guide the design and development process:

Time management

Effective time management is critical to timely delivery and completion of the project.
    When managing projects:

Communication


Without clear communication, collaboration is challenging at best - and impossible at worst. Communication is one of the most important skills for working with others in any capacity, and is vital for effective project management.
     When communicating with others on your project:

Respect and professionalism

Even if you’re completing a project for personal development or fun, when working with others it’s important to respect them and have a professional attitude in your work.

     When collaborating on a project with others:

4.Design documents and project plans

In the pre-production phase at the start of the project, design documents are created to help define and scope what you are going to create. These documents include:

Design documents



Design documents contain the blueprint for your project. They include:
 In your high level design document, you should identify:
A design document can include diagrams, flow charts, sketches, inspirational images from similar products, and reference images to capture the intended look and feel of the product.


If you don't already have a design document, you can download a PDF version of the design document template from the materials section or you can make a Google document copy.

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Project charters



Once the design document has been approved and the project is greenlit to be produced, a project charter is useful, especially when you are working in a team. This is a formal document that describes the entire project, including the project's objectives, how it will be carried out, and who the stakeholders are. The project charter is used in both the pre-production and production phases.


You can download a PDF version of an example project charter in the materials section or make a Google document copy.


The project charter usually includes:

Additional documentation



Depending on your project, you may need to create additional supporting documentation during the pre-production phase to help you scope and plan for production. You can iterate on these documents throughout pre-production and production, as needed.


These include:

5.Managing projects and tracking progress

Once you have your project clearly scoped out, it is time to start planning how to manage a project by planning appropriate schedules and managing a project plan. While the project plan is usually created in pre-production, it is used and iterated upon throughout the production phase to track the project's progress.
The project plan takes the elements identified in the design document and project charter and sets specific tasks and deliverable dates. The producer or project manager will often create this plan and update it as necessary when changes need to be made. They will also create a project tracker, which can be part of the plan itself or created separately, to measure progress against the defined tasks and required deliverables. If you don’t create and follow a project plan, the result is usually scope creep — the continuous adding of new ideas and features to your plan — which can lead to the project failing, being late, or going over budget.


Some guidelines to successfully track projects, for both individuals and teams, include:

Creating projects for clients


If you are creating a project for a client, there are some additional considerations that can help support effective project management:


6.Exercise: Identify tools to support your project management and tracking

There are a variety of project management tools that can help you to identify and plan all the steps of a project . Products like Trello, Favro, Airtable, Monday.com, Google Apps, Jira, and GitHub offer various features to support individuals and teams to plan and track their workstreams so that they execute and deliver on time. Many of these project management tools have templates that you can re-purpose to your particular project needs.

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If you don’t already use one of these tools, take some time to investigate the options available to you and identify a tool to trial for your next project.


If you do already use one of these tools but it’s not quite right for you, this is a great opportunity to investigate whether there are new options or features available that might better support you elsewhere.


Share your experience


If you’ve had a great experience with a particular tool, or discovered a really useful tool in your research, share your insights in the comments to support other learners!

7.Preparing to publish

In the post-production phase, you’ll prepare to publish your project. Your project plan should account for quality assurance (QA) testing, content editing and revision, bug fixing, and final polishing of the deliverables. 
Let’s consider quality assurance testing in a little more detail.

Quality assurance testing

During the QA testing process, there are two important project management considerations: QA testing scripts and bug reporting processes. 
Test scripts A QA test script is a series of steps for a tester to follow and record their observations. These scripts are usually created before formal testing starts, and are used to evaluate the product against specific project requirements and use cases. They may also be used to test the team’s assumptions about the user experience of the product.

Bug report tracking Bug tracking and resolution is a vital part of polishing the product for delivery. The tools used to track bug reports vary — Jira and Github are popular choices, but many individuals and teams use a spreadsheet.
Typical bug reports include:
If you want to learn more about bug reports, review The Art Of The Bug Report at the Ministry of Testing.

8.Releasing your project

Once your project has been tested, fixed, and validated, you are ready to publish. Your project plan should account for when and where you are publishing your product — ideally, you’ve been sticking to your deliverable date, and you are publishing your project on the date you originally identified.


Even if you don’t hit the exact date you identified in pre-production, by following a clear project plan and making adjustments along the way, you should be within a reasonable range of your original release date.


9.Operations activities and retrospectives

Operations activities



The final phase of the production cycle, operations, includes work typically done after a product has been released to keep it running. Although operations activities generally don’t start until the release date, they should be identified and planned during pre-production. These activities include ongoing sales, monetization, updates, and continued maintenance.

Project retrospectives


Finally, a retrospective should be planned once the project is launched so that you (and your team, if there was one) can reflect back on the design and development process. Retrospectives help you identify areas that went well, areas that didn’t go well, and ways to improve for future projects.
One simple approach to conducting a retrospective can be to make a chart with three columns and identify things that you think you should:
There are lots of tools and frameworks available for organizing and facilitating retrospectives if you’d like to find something a little different that best suits your particular project.

10.Summary

In this tutorial, you’ve explored the basics of project management. These are applicable to any project you work on: big or small, for real-time experience creation, or for any other kind of project!
When you start your next project, use these recommendations to help you stay on track and deliver on time. Why not set up some documentation and a simple project plan or tracker for your next portfolio project?