SSH Game: the Project Plan

A while ago we came up with an idea for a virtual reality game about wandering through networks using SSH.
Unfortunately we lack the time to actually implement it, so instead we wrote something like a games design document.
We recently started learning about project management and planning and decided to use our SSH game idea as an exercise to create a fictional project plan. So here are our three steps to get from the ‘idea’ to the project plan.

Step1: Divide Workload into Tasks and Subtasks

List all steps necessary to complete the project. Tasks can be specific like 'create a model of a key' or more general like 'create 3d models'. If tasks are more general, the specifics can either organized into subtasks or in something like a list that gets linked with the task. In the next phase, tasks that are too large can either be replaced with smaller tasks or be further divided into subtasks. We thought about what we would have to do to make the game and came up with this list of tasks:

• Design Assets/Artwork
• Design Implementation
• Asset modeling
• Basic mechanics/ Controls movement
• Advanced mechanics / SSH feature animations
• Advanced mechanics / SSH feature
• Unity SSH client
• Polish
• Beta Test
• Final Polish

Step2: Create Gantt Chart from Tasks

Now we can make the tasks into a flow or gantt chart.
This is also a good moment to divide tasks into subtasks or group tasks together if needed.
Once your tasks have appropriate time constraints you can define dependencies and thereby create your gantt chart.
Here dependencies mean that a task can only begin once another task is finished, e.g.
you can only start modeling your assets once you decided what models you want to have.
We divided our tasks into three phases, a planing phase an implementation phase and a final phase.
Those three phases are strictly dependent which means a phase can only start once all tasks from its predecessor phase are completed.
Tasks within the same phase can be dependent or can be worked on simultaneously.
Note that usually we would also assign dates and durations to the tasks, but as this plan is just for the sake of planning, we do without dates and assign durations just as we think they might be possible.

Step3: Assign Resources

Different tasks require different resources.
Resources can be anything from actual materials to people with certain skills.
Before we can assign resources to our tasks we create a resource pool, where we list all resources we have/need.
In our case we have tasks that require 3d modeling e.g. with Cinema4D and implementation e.g. with Unity.
Therefore our resource pool consists of

• 3d modeling
• development
• menial
• Unity
• C4D

We add menial as a resource for tasks that don't require any particular skill.
Now that we have our resource pool, we can assign resources to the tasks that need them.
Note that this is also a good place to think about actual time requirements e.g.
"this task needs about 20h of this resource and 10h of this resource".
Since resources are usually limited, this step can be a first hint for possible conflicts.
Here is our project plan and Gantt chart:

We used Projectlibre to create the project plan. There are also features for resource management and project cost calculation.