Tools for planning

Tools:

For this project, I will be using various tools in collaboration with my team in order to plan our project. Here is a list of the main tools we will be using and what we are using them for. I will also evaluate the tools evaluating their effectiveness and function for both planning and communication.

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Trello:

Trello is a web-based list-making application used in the industry to plan and organize projects in a multitude of workflows. Trello is a popular tool in game design planning for both teams and solo developers. Using Trello, you can create lists of tasks and add a variety of things onto them to help with planning an organization including labels, checklists, due dates, and members. 

I and my team will be using Trello for most of the planning of this project with the aid of Miro we will be using Trello to list our tasks for each week and mark progress on the completion. I will be using lists to keep track of what to do and what's been done and using checklists to keep track of what I have done and what needs doing. I will add a due date to each card to keep track of the deadlines of the project. I will also keep track of my team's tasks using Trello and keep any valuable information like links and team formations. 

Trello's biggest issue is its steep learning curve as finding an efficient workflow that works for you and your team can take time and is not always easy. you and your team may have completely different ways of planning making it hard to use tools like Trello.

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Miro:

Miro is a whiteboarding platform that helps teams to brainstorm and plan a wide variety of tasks. using Miro you can add images and text in small boxes and connect them together. Miro is a more image-based planning tool than some others allowing it to stand out. it is good for creating mood boards using shape tools you can also add comments to other people's work to give feedback. Miro is also a great tool to create flow charts and create mind maps. 

I and my team will use Miro as a collaborative mood board and planning tool in partnership with the use of Trello. We will use Miro to add images that relate to the part of the project we are working on like the cars or logos and I will use it to make flow charts for my coding. 

The biggest issue with Miro is that it is less collaborative than tools like Trello so you have to compensate with tools like Trello. it is also much more image-based so it is harder to plan tasks again having to be compensated for.

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Rapid Tables Notepad:

Rapid Tables Notepad is a notepad tool to write down simple text and save it as a file. I will be using a notepad to write down most of the work. I will use it because not only does it work with Grammarly to keep it spelled correctly it also can save all files to Notepad files.

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PureRef:

PureRef is a piece of software used to collect and hold images directly from your PC or browser. to start you find images either to create a mood board or to find inspiration then you drag them directly from your browser into PureRef you can sort them into any shape or form and create text to label or title any part of the board. 

the reason I will be using PureRef is that it is a very clean and minimal software and personally I get quite distracted from work. the software holds only the features that it needs making it a simple and appealing software to use. It also can save files to be used elsewhere. I will be using PureRef to plan and compare images related to our work like the menu.

The biggest issues with PureRef are that it is not a collaborative tool so it can only be used for independent parts of the project this also means if I want to share it with my team I would either have to send them the file or I would have to send images directly.  

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Teams:

Microsoft Teams is a platform for team and business communication made by Microsoft it is used to contact and manage a team or group using a wide range of communication features like conference calls meetings message boards. You can create group chats containing your team members and call or message them.

We will be using Microsoft Teams as one of our team's main forms of communication and we will use it as a planning tool. We will create a group message chat so we can call and message each other it will also be our way of sending large files to each other like game assets. Microsoft Teams is also a good tool because it has a range of features meaning we can use it for multiple parts of teamwork other than communication. teams Is also a good tool for sharing research and assets like tutorials and videos allowing us to help each other and work better as a team.

Microsoft Teams' biggest issue is that it is not made for really large conversations or conceiving/planning due to its main use being communication meaning that it may be hard to get our ideas across from each other during times when we can not talk over a voice call.