Team Selection

The formation of teams is a two-phase process, that occurs late in the quarter.

Phase 1 - Greenlight Pitch Teams

The first phase is the creation of the final greenlight pitch team. This begins immediately after the selection of final greenlight pitches (in week 8). Once a game has been selected to participate in the Final Greenlight pitches, the lead person developing that game concept can, if they wish, bring on one more person onto their team (for a total of two people). This creates a greenlight pitch team. The lead designer can use any criteria they wish to select the one other team member, but is encouraged to use an application/interview process. 

Phase 2 - Final Team Selection

The second phase is the creation of the final team that will develop the game over the remainder of the year. Each (now greenlit approved) greenlight pitch team must follow a formal process for the selection of their final team, comprised of the following steps:

Have an open, transparent application process. All greenlight teams will permit applications by any member of the class, and will follow class-wide application deadlines. Each greenlight team will indicate how they want members to apply (e.g., via email), and what materials they should submit (e.g,. resume, portfolio, coding sample).

Select people for interviews: From the set of applicants, each greenlight team will determine who they will select for interviews, and set up times for interviews.

Have posted interview questions: Each greenlight team must use the same set of interview questions in each interview. These questions must be written down before the first interview, and will be made available to the TAs and instructor upon request. It is a best practice to send the interview questions to potential interviewees ahead of time. If there is a "secret" element to one of the questions (such as a programming test that you do not wish to divulge) then indicate the kind of question (e.g., "there will be a programming question about common game programming tasks").

Notification of selected people: All greenlight teams will announce their final selections on the same day. There are no exceptions to this rule, and teams found to have been making offers before the stated date will be cut. Once this initial announcement date has passed, teams may make secondary offers at any time, and people seeking teams may join teams at any time.

Notification of team selection: People should quickly notify teams that they have accepted or declined their offer.

A class-wide shared spreadsheet will track which teams students have joined.

End of Quarter Status

At the end of the quarter, it is possible that spme people will not have joined teams.

Students who have not managed to find a team by the end of CMPM 171 will be encouraged to find a team over the break. Worst case, they will be required to interview with teams during the first week of Winter quarter.

At the end of Fall quarter, some game teams may not have sufficient people to execute their game idea. For example, a complex 3D game with a team of 2 or 3 people is clearly insufficient. In that situation, the instructor will cancel a game. As a result, while teams need to be careful to bring on only good people, they also need to be careful to staff their game with sufficient numbers of people to avoid being cancelled.

Fairness and Discrimination

A team that is clearly being unfair or discriminatory in their interviewing and selection processes may, at the discretion of the instructor, be cancelled.

If, in the perception of the instructor, a student is primarily being evaluated based on non-performance criteria (such as race, disability, religion, nationality, gender, etc.) then this student will be placed onto an existing team. Students who feel they are being excluded primarily for non-performance reasons should contact the instructor or the TAs and discuss their situation.