Better than You Found It
“Leave this world a little better than you found it.”
Robert Baden Powell was the father of the Scout Movement. In his farewell message, prepared for his Scouts before his death, he wrote those words—leave this world a little better than you found. It’s a principle that can be traced clear back to Genesis, when God created Adam before The Fall and gave him work to do. Cultivate this garden. Tend it. Take care of it. Make it better.
This idea is succinctly expressed through the word stewardship. It’s a word you have probably heard used a bunch in the church. It’s most commonly expressed about financial resources, but I would like to focus on stewardship in relationship to our environment—expressly, the environment in which game developers live. The environment in which game developers live is our project. It’s a place we occupy for large portions of our game’s development, sometimes for years at a time. It’s a diverse landscape made up of many different types of files that people of many different disciplines occupy. How we treat this environment has a direct effect on the quality of life for our team. If things are messy, mislabeled, and confusing—our progress will be slow. Frustration will set in. Meetings will be scheduled. Deadlines will be missed.
Now, the Scouts took Robert’s words to heart and put his principle into practice. When they leave a campsite, it’s in better condition than when they entered. As a game developer, what would happen if you adopted this same mentality? What if you took on the humble posture of a steward?
Here are a few questions to help get you thinking about what this might look like.
What if you constantly looked for opportunities to improve your environment?
What if when you opened a file, you made sure it was a tiny bit better than before closing it?
What if you made sure everything had a proper label?
What if you took the time to organize files into their proper folders?
What if you documented all the important information about your project?
And what if everyone on your team followed your lead and adopted this same posture?
What kind of project would you have?
