Game Development process reviews, Part 1

Here's a list of categories I have noticed as being common among game developers at the AAA level for either helping or hindering their efforts. This information is gleaned from my stack of about 20 Game Developer issues, is no way scientific, and will be adjusted as I find more information.

What Went Wrong
1)Internal Pipeline Issues: This contains problems with a project/company's art/lighting/asset pipeline mainly.
2)Scheduling Issues: The problems here dealt mainly with tasks started too early/late, lack of synchronization with timed tasks, and missed milestones.
3)Testing/Demo Issues: Faulty testing procedures, lack of testing, and issues with rushed demos.
4)Scoping Issues: Feature-creep, larger than anticipated workload for features, etc.
5)Design Issues: Design flaws that led to bad gameplay, hacks, etc.

Dishonorable mentions: Outsourcing issues, Inexperienced Leadership/Underdeveloped Docs, and issues with Cinematics tied for the #6 slot.

What Went Right
1)The Right People: Here, there were people in the right position, strong leadership, and/or dedicated teams cited.
2)Innovation/Hooks: Cool features, incremental or wholesale innovation, or a good hook to the gameplay.
3)Good Process/Communication: Usually cited for the creative process and asset production, and also cited for good communication and collaboration.
4)Testing: Early and in-depth testing, prototypes, early betas.
5)Scoping/Feature Cuts: Axing features that there was no time to implement, paring unneeded features, or proper scoping that prevented cuts or even added features that could reasonably be added.

Honorable mentions: Tools development comes in a close #6 tied with Customized Engine/Technology.

So the lessons here? I think if you look at the most common issues, you can see two sides of the coin here, most of it boiling down to one word: Preparation.

Almost all of the negative issues could have been reduced or eliminated by properly preparing processes, pipelines, and people beforehand. Likewise, 4 of the top 5 categories I noticed were related to preparation, leadership, structure, and flexibility. The same trend continues with the honorable/dishonorable mentions.

Now, this is not to say that they didn't try. Many of the games in these post-mortems were AAA hits like Ratchet and Clank, Homeworld 2, etc, and they reported the same issues as some of the smaller titles looked at. But since this is a limited view, I'm going to be posting a part 2 in a week or so after I've done additional investigation and see what other post-mortems I can find and dissect, and also if I can find and compare some Indie post-mortems with that of the AAAs and see if the trend is similar, or if we have the set exact set of problems.

My hunch? Preparation is a huge issue, and while Indies may feel the pain in unique areas more than AAAs, it will probably all boil down to that one word...

In the meantime, I would like any teams out there who have launched a game to email me (Ted@DigitalFlux.com) with a voluntary list of your own. You don't have to be too specific in the problems or successes, and you don't have to write too much (a few sentences, or even a list or keywords, would suffice), but the little bit would help in comparing the issues of AAAs to the issues of Indies, and then aid in building a bridge between the two so that everyone can benefit. Thanks in advance!