By Jason Campbell
One of the most common pieces of advice given to game masters is to prepare less for each session. The idea is to prepare only a session ahead, so that you don’t write a lot that doesn’t get used when the players do something unexpected. This is in opposition to writing a campaign’s plot points well ahead, or using an adventure path where the story is linear. What does this have to do with project management for software development? Maybe a lot.
Project and Campaign Planning
Project management methodologies commonly used for software development fall into two broad categories: predictive and flexible. A predictive approach is often called waterfall, and uses traditional scheduling. A flexible approach is often called Agile and uses planning that embraces change. Over the last 2 decades project management philosophy has shifted from waterfall to favoring Agile. Similarly in recent years GMs have largely moved towards a more flexible approach to game prep.
Predictive Planning
A waterfall approach expects a complete plan/schedule will be developed before development starts. Each step follows another step until the project is complete. This is how projects were planned until 2001 when the Agile manifesto was published and quickly gained popularity. It’s similar to how most GMs prepared TTRPG campaigns. The GM would prepare the storyline, anticipating choices the players might make. This wasn’t necessarily what’s referred to as a railroad, because the players still made choices. Broad assumptions were made about the characters’ progress, although the players had control over the details of how to get there. Preparing a long form campaign in this way uses a waterfall approach, where each part of the adventure leads directly to the next part.
Flexible Planning
The Agile method embraces change. Because a waterfall method makes assumptions about all the stages of a project, change is a problem to be managed. In a software project, a change to the product requires change management, where you might change the development process, the budget or the life cycle of the project. Similarly, when a TTRPG campaign follows a planned path, if the players do something unexpected the GM has to decide how to get the story back on track.
Flexible planning assumes there will be change by using an iterative process. Each stage of the project is designed, developed and its success evaluated, and then the next stage is designed. This allows for a well tested project at completion. A TTRPG campaign that uses minimal preparation uses an Agile/flexible method. The GM designs a single session and doesn’t design the next one until the previous session is completed and the results of its actions can be determined. The GM may have a rough idea of where the campaign might go later, but nothing is determined and designed until the plot has reached the point where the requirements of that session are determined.
Conclusion
Project management continues to evolve just as TTRPG game masters evolve their own preparation habits. Each project has its own demands, and there are no hard and fast rules to committing to a waterfall or Agile plan. Many projects now use a hybrid approach, adopting a flexible method while borrowing a few elements from a predictive method. Similarly, GMs should adopt a method that they are comfortable with and works for their group. A GM can have an idea of where the campaign is going while realizing that nothing is set in stone until the session when those plot points are needed. The parallels of project management and GM prep are interesting and each might learn from the other.
My day job is a project manager at a software company, and in my off time I’m a forever GM. What do you think? Do you see parallels between TTRPG play and business methods? Let us know in the comments!
