How to Conduct a Game Development Post-Mortem

A game development post-mortem is a critical evaluation process conducted after a project’s completion to analyze what went well, what went wrong, and how to improve future projects. This article outlines the step-by-step process of conducting an effective post-mortem, from gathering initial feedback and hosting the collaborative meeting to documenting actionable takeaways for the development team.

Phase 1: Preparation and Information Gathering

Before gathering the team, it is essential to collect data and qualitative feedback to ensure the discussion is based on facts rather than emotions.

• Anonymous Surveys: Distribute a survey to everyone involved in the project. Ask team members to identify three things that went well, three things that went poorly, and any bottlenecks they encountered.
• Review Project Metrics: Gather hard data, including budget tracking, schedule adherence, bug counts, feature-creep instances, and launch-day performance metrics.
• Analyze Player Feedback: If the game has launched, compile early reviews, player forums, crash reports, and sales data to understand the external reception.

Phase 2: Structuring the Post-Mortem Meeting

The core of the post-mortem is a collaborative meeting where representatives from every department (art, programming, design, audio, QA, and production) come together to discuss the project.

• Establish Ground Rules: The meeting must be a safe space. Establish early that the goal is to analyze processes, not to assign blame to individuals.
• Appoint a Moderator: A neutral facilitator, such as a project manager or Scrum Master, should run the meeting to keep the discussion on track and within the time limit.
• Focus on the “Five Whys”: When examining a failure, use the “Five Whys” technique to drill down to the root cause of an issue rather than focusing on surface-level symptoms.

Phase 3: The Three Core Pillars of Analysis

During the meeting, structure the discussion around three main pillars:

1. What Went Right

Identify the tools, pipelines, communication strategies, or design decisions that contributed to the game’s success. Documenting these ensures they are repeated and standardized in future projects.

2. What Went Wrong

Discuss the major pain points of production. This typically includes issues like scope creep, communication breakdowns, technical debt, or unrealistic deadlines. Be specific about how these issues impacted the game and the team’s morale.

3. Lessons Learned

For every item that went wrong, brainstorm a preventative measure. Translate failures into concrete, actionable advice for the next project cycle.

Phase 4: Documenting and Actioning the Results

A post-mortem is only valuable if its findings are applied to future work.

• Write the Post-Mortem Report: Compile the meeting notes, survey results, and data into a clear, concise document.
• Create Action Items: Translate lessons learned into specific tasks. For example, if “lack of prototyping” was a major issue, create a new pipeline rule that mandates prototyping before any feature enters full production.
• Archive and Share: Store the document in a central knowledge base accessible to the entire studio. Some studios also choose to publish their post-mortems publicly on industry websites to contribute to the broader game development community.