Software Development for Disney Animated Feature Film Production

Level: Practicing

This session will describe our experience in using the Scrum process of Software Development to create complex tools for use in animated movie production. Our process evolved out of the need to keep the task of UI design at least one sprint ahead of software development. Our products are designed for the creative in-house artists who use the tools for long hours over the course of movie production. We will also share ways to capture the complexity in the artists workflow and methods to break it down into reusable components both for graphical user interfaces and for software development.

Process/Mechanics

This will be an experience report. During the session, Brian and I will start by describing the history of the company, the (movies) products we create and the role Brian and I play in the organization. Our experience with adopting the Scrum process will then be presented. I will describe our struggles with balancing UI and Interaction Design with software development. We had several false starts as we experimented with different methods including text scripts, paper prototyping, sketches, low-fidelity mock-ups and highly-interactive models. We will also describe issues with timing the GUI design work with the development sprints. We will also share some graphs, designs, screen-shots and final results from each of the trials and from the current methodology that works for our organization. Finally, we’ll take questions from the audience

Learning outcomes
  • Workable ways to combine Agile (Scrum) and Interaction Design.
  • Why complex tasks require complex interfaces.
  • In-house software development for large but diverse set of users.
  • Maintaining Scrum Discipline against tight deadlines.
Featured participants
Primary target persona