XR Pre-Production

The transition from concept development into pre-production was pretty clear for the first project – its when we started spending money.

When producing training and promotional content in an enterprise there are a few prerequisites. I will refer to them as “backing”:

• An internal customer excited and on board with the concept
• A principal with funding to pay for it
• The funding is earmarked and budgeted

From there we can start to refine a product definition:

• What we are building and who will use it?
• How will we measure project success?
• How we are going to build it?
• What does a high-level schedule look like?

There are a couple more questions that should be asked throughout development. I classify them under “fitness”. If they can be answered clearly and regularly in pre-production it will keep the focus on results:

• What measurable business goals does this project support?
• Is this project aligned with the goals and image of our brand?
• Will the projected investment in the project return enough value to justify it?

It’s rare that someone would seriously question producing a user manual. It is not uncommon for someone to take pot-shots at supposed vanity show pieces. I need to have a fluent answer at the ready that answers why it makes sense to apply this specific approach to addressing a specific corporate goal.

Pre-production confirms the validity of project definition and refines it. We need to be able to answer the following questions before we move out of this phase:

• What are we building?
  • List of essential game features
  • A build and test plan
  • The content required
• Why are we building it?
  • What business goal is supported?
  • Is the concept aligned and does it contribute enough to matter?
• Who we are hiring to build it?
  • Is the team in place and staffed?
  • Who is responsible for building what?
  • Do we have the right people onboard to complete the game we envision?
• How we are going to build it?
  • game engine
  • content tools
  • build environment/devops
  • What items have the most risk?
  • What mitigations do we have?
• When will milestones and project completion be reached?
  • How long will it take to build?
  • What does a high-level schedule look like?