How I got Program Management to work

[Degasai]

Sorry, no tl;dr here, folks. Program Management is complicated.

1. Trained my main character up to 100% Lead skill. Date was May of 1982. I have my character, 1 artist, 2 programmers and 2 designers. Programmers I trained to 100% system, 2D, and Algorithm in Code...and 100% system, 2D and audio in Design. Designers were trained 100% in the same categories. My character was already strong in Art, as was my Artist. At this time, I had roughly 330K in funds from doing Game Assets contracts. NOTE: my current game is running at 2 days/Month.

2. Clicked "Program Manager" button in lower left UI and set my main up as a Program Manager. I named this task "eWave", which is what I named the 2D Audio project in step 3 below. Mostly left all the options at default, set the project development at 250% and clicked OK. Project Mgmt task window popped up on the right side of the interface, with my characters name in the bottom pane.

3. Opened the Design Document by clicking that button in lower left UI. This is the window where you choose what type of software you want to make, directly above the Contracts button.
I set the software as "2D Editor". I named the project eWave, licensed the top 3 most popular Operating Systems. I then clicked the "Project Management" button to bring up a list of all current Project Management Tasks. That window only listed one: "eWave". I clicked that name, and the eWave project window disappeared.

4. I went to the eWave management task window on the UI, and chose "Options". When you click that, you bring up the Project Management window for the eWave software project. At this point, you tell your project manager how you want them to run it. You assign which teams are going to run which tasks (Development, Design, Support and Marketing). You also tell your manager how many copies of the software to print when it is finally released and a few other things).

5. I then closed all the windows. I set my Lead and the programmers and designers into one team, named "Development". I left my best artist in the Core team pumping out contracts. Please note that you will never see the actual Project window on the interface. If you want to see what's happening with the project, you will need to go to the Manager window and click on "Options". Do you can tweak the project in this window. You might want to create dedicated teams for things like Design and Programming, and change the team assignments for the different stages of development. Or, you might want to change the number of copies to be printed at release. Whatever...just DO NOT CLICK "Takeover". Unless you want to manage the whole project manually.

6. WAIT. It will take 24-48 hours for the Task Manager window to begin showing progress. The first indication will show that the Project is being Designed. The duration of this stage is a percentage of a base Design value modified by the Project Development percentage you chose when you set everything up. I told my project manager to develop the project to 250%. I started in May of 1982. Design phase ran about 5 months, IIRC. It then went into Development phase. That went on for about 3 months. During that time, I hired two compatible Marketers, assigned to the Development team. I immediately educated them to 100% Marketing, assigned them to the Development team in "Any Role" and then left the whole project alone. I noticed that the Project Manager had the Marketers announce a Release Date of August 1983.

7. Check progress with Manager/Options. Watch as followers are gained. Chew fingernails as the release date approaches and it still shows "Developing" in the manager window. Pull hair out as it reaches the release date without EVER showing a bug fixing stage, and you figure it's going to be released LATE.

8. Groan as eWave is released ON TIME. Watch the calendar roll into the next month, and be amazed that your details show that it is GOOD quality, and is actually selling copies.

9. Stare in amazement as you move into the next day and you have gained $400k in your bank account. Keep staring as you climb to 4 MILLION in your account over the next 2 days. You also now have 8k fans.

10. Endure the reality check as eWave has peaked at $1 million/day revenue...and starts heading south. Fans start dropping...slowly. Manager window is showing no activity, but the team is still coding frantically. You realize they are running Customer Support, verifying and fixing customer bugs. You've got 70K users, and you're still selling copies. The game tells you that you no longer have enough support staff for the product. You hire 2 more programmers.

11. So, you're still selling this audio software at the rate of around 1500 users a day, but that's on a pretty steep decline. You check to see what's causing it, and see that a NEW OPERATING SYSTEM has been released! You quickly assign a team to port eWave to the new OS. Sales start going up again, but nowhere near as quickly as it did on release.


And that's as far as I've gotten. As long as your software is making you money, you are going to have to keep Customer Support assigned. For years, if necessary. Or, at least until you release a new version of that software.

If you read this far, congratulations! This information is valid until coredumping releases a new version.

[cfranks007]

Very good ! I liked your setup !

[jolii]

I dont consider it especially complicated. Train a leader, set up your teams, set up PM, go to the design and assign it to the PM. The problem I run into is that sometimes the project won't start for no discernable reason. If I monkey around enough, switching teams around and recreating things, it starts eventually. I hope you're not right that it just takes time to start (waiting months doesn't seem appropriate). It just feels buggy.

[Degasai]

@cfranks007: Thanks :)

@jolii: I'm certain that Program Management is high on coredumping's polishing/bugfixing calendar. However, it has either gotten better or I'm starting to understand it's complicated functions and dependencies a little better. I am pretty sure that there are some steps in efficient project management that I still haven't figured out. I would guess that there will be tweaks to the PM system with every new patch. The end result could be a complete redesign, or just tweaking the existing content. This is alpha. Things are going to change.

[jolii]

I've been playing a long time, so I've seen the first version of PM and all the changes that have taken place. It's both better and more frustrating right now. Fix some bugs, add/refine/clarify the options, and provide some additional feedback and it will be in a good place. I'm sure he'll get there.

[Steel Rat]

How I got Program Management to work?

Never used it

I've won 3 games now in Alpha 9 from 10k 1980 start and never had more than 80 employees in 4-5 teams with just a lead in each one.
No project management or use of HR.
All games finished before 2000
It can be done :)

[jolii]

It's not a matter of needing to use it, it's just more fun to use it (for me) and eliminates a lot of things that aren't fun. With hosting and printing providing free $, there really isn't a challenge to the game anymore.

[Steel Rat]

Originally posted by jolii:

It's not a matter of needing to use it, it's just more fun to use it (for me) and eliminates a lot of things that aren't fun. With hosting and printing providing free $, there really isn't a challenge to the game anymore.

True......sad but true

[Spoopy Owl]

What I'm having trouble with is it seems I have issues with no-one wanting to design anything. I have my teams setup properly (I think) and my PM setp and projects queued, and for some reason the project goes strait from no-one working straight to developement, never designing anything.

My project management screen looks like this and my teams are setup like this

Right now I just have my two design teams on designing and my programmers and artists on development. Do i also need programmers and artists in every stage for designing and development? I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here. I assume I just dont have the right teams assinged ot the right stages of the project?

using the X-Perience Mod as my scenario also, but i dont think that is what is causing issues.

[SpaceBell]

I had the same issue with x-perience mod and PM. HW products which need only art, dont have a design phase probably that's why they never being finished by a project.

[Spoopy Owl]

Originally posted by artero3:

I had the same issue with x-perience mod and PM. HW products which need only art, dont have a design phase probably that's why they never being finished by a project.

Yeah, so i made another test game and tan it with 4 day months instead of 1 day to slow down the progress so i could see what was happening. I redid my 8 teams and this time added programmers, designers, and artists to the design phase and the development phase respectively. This worked out but was a bit negative. Since they were skipping the design phase and going strait to development, and i was not so smart and had sequals, and auto development on. My project lead churned out 6 new versions of the Case Cooler i was making in about 3 months, all at horrible quality. Quickly shut that down, but i was just debugging in 10M $ whenever i needed it to keep myself alive for testing.

So, then I paused the PM and made one manually. My Case Cooler v3 went into the design phase, and was fully designed from nothing to full in i think 1 or 2 hours in-game, and then i moved it to development. Everything was going smoothly, so i can see how the PM was just "skipping over it" becuase it was designed so quickly, or most likely just doesnt actually need it like you said.

So, now with it in development, it recomended i only needed 20 art points. So i waited for 20 points, peer reviewd and outsourced and got like 7 - 8 / 10 average it think on both. so then i waited till i had 30-something points and released it. it was made with Great quality and i ordered 200k copies and have yet to sell one, although i think that is just because i have no fans right now. So, to eliminate the issue of my PM not developing enough, i've got it set to 500% development time, and will see if that improves the quality of my automated projects.

my only complaint is that i cant set things like the CPU cooler, processor, and the other bits of hardware that the mod lets you make as In-House, so that when i finally have all the bits to pust a functioning device together. that I can basically have it locked in with all my own made outstanding items and make sure Acer and ASUS dont use my things in thier computers.(unless that means they pay me royalties or something right?)