Client Overview
Duke University's Game Design, Development & Innovation (GDDI) program is a master's-level, industry-facing curriculum at the Pratt School of Engineering, where students spend multiple semesters working in studio teams to build games from concept through production, mirroring how independent game studios operate.
Working with Arctiq, Duke implemented Atlassian Jira as the foundational platform for that studio-based curriculum, giving 60+ students hands-on experience with sprint planning, agile project management, and cross-functional collaboration throughout the program.
The Challenge: Bridge the Gap Between Academia and the Game Industry
Traditional academic programs often struggle to replicate the pace, collaboration, and operational complexity of professional game studios. Duke's GDDI leadership wanted to close that gap.
"Our objective is to replicate a studio environment as much as we can within an academic setup," said Ernesto Escobar, Executive Director, Master of Engineering in Game Design, Development and Innovation, Duke University Pratt School of Engineering. "We divide students into studios, give them autonomy, and expect them to behave like indie game development teams with a tangible product at the end."
Rather than teaching students how to complete assignments, the program is designed to help them experience the full lifecycle of professional game development, from early ideation and prototyping through production, iteration, and ultimately preparing projects for release. Jira supports that experience across the entire program, becoming part of how each studio plans, communicates, and operates over multiple semesters.
The challenge was not simply teaching students how to make games. The program needed to teach students how to work like professionals:
- Collaborating in larger, cross-functional teams
- Managing long-term production schedules
- Running agile ceremonies and sprint planning
- Communicating asynchronously
- Handling accountability and ownership
- Learning production workflows used in commercial studios
- Leading multidisciplinary teams through extended development cycles
Duke faculty also wanted students to become fluent in the same tools and workflows they would encounter after graduation.
"We want our students to feel like game development professionals when they graduate," Escobar explained. "If somebody hires our graduates and says, 'I feel like I hired somebody coming from a small studio,' that's how we define success."
The team recognized that using simplified classroom tools would not adequately prepare students for industry expectations.
"There are easier tools out there," said Brian Chu, Executive in Residence of the Game Design, Development and Innovation Master's Program, Duke University Pratt School of Engineering. "But our intention was not to make it easier. Jira is robust, powerful, and flexible. If students can become fluent in Jira, they can quickly learn almost any other project management platform they encounter in the industry."
That philosophy extends beyond learning a single software platform. Duke intentionally exposes students to the same production environment, processes, and expectations they will encounter in professional studios, allowing them to build experience that continues throughout the program rather than ending with an individual class.
As Duke evaluated how to operationalize this vision, the program needed a partner with both technical Atlassian expertise and an understanding of how agile methodologies could support collaborative, long-term production workflows in an academic environment.
Our Solution: Build a Studio-Style Learning Environment with Jira
Duke selected Atlassian Jira as one of the program's core production tools, alongside Unreal Engine and Perforce. Arctiq helped deploy and support the platform as part of the program's studio-based learning model.
The decision was driven directly by industry feedback.
"In talking with game studios and industry professionals, we learned that Jira was one of the primary tools used to organize production," Escobar said. "We wanted our students using the same professional tools they'll use after graduation."
The Arctiq team worked alongside Duke to help configure Jira in a way that supported agile development practices while remaining flexible enough for different studio teams and production styles. Their expertise helped Duke quickly establish scalable workflows and collaborative structures that students could immediately begin using.
Rather than teaching Jira as a standalone software course, Duke integrated it into the day-to-day workflow of the program. Students begin with an introductory Jira session before moving into a multi-semester production cycle where Jira becomes part of their everyday work.
Instead of supporting a single course, Jira becomes part of the operating rhythm of each studio. Students rely on it throughout the program to coordinate work, manage production milestones, communicate across disciplines, and prepare projects that increasingly resemble commercial game development efforts.
For nearly four academic terms, students:
- Create and manage sprint boards
- Run agile ceremonies
- Track sprint velocity
- Conduct daily standups
- Prioritize backlogs
- Manage production milestones
- Coordinate work asynchronously
- Review postmortems and production outcomes
"The students are using Jira every week," Escobar said. "It starts early in the program and continues all the way through graduation."
Faculty intentionally introduced students to real-world production friction rather than oversimplifying collaboration.
"Working in larger teams is harder," Escobar noted. "But we want students to learn communication, planning, ownership, and accountability. That's part of becoming industry-ready."
Jira's flexibility allowed both beginner and advanced students to grow at their own pace.
"Some students use the fundamentals, sprint setup, drag-and-drop workflows, and task tracking," Chu explained. "Others dive deep into advanced reporting, workflows, and analytics. Jira supports both paths."
Students say that flexibility allows each studio member to engage with Jira at the level appropriate to their role while still giving the entire team a common production environment.
"Some teammates wanted to use every advanced feature, while others only needed the basics," said Tommy Cheely, a student in Duke's GDDI program who served as project manager for his studio team. "Jira lets everyone work at the level that's comfortable for them while still keeping the entire team aligned."
For Cheely, learning Jira also meant learning the tools and production practices already expected throughout the game industry. "Every production job I looked at listed Jira as a required skill," Cheely said. "I'm happy that I can now put that on my résumé, but more importantly, I'll be able to join a studio already knowing the tools my employer is using and seamlessly contribute to the team."
The platform also provided visibility beyond the student teams themselves. Industry mentors and faculty advisors actively reviewed Jira boards to monitor project progress, evaluate production health, and guide studio teams throughout development.
Because faculty, mentors, and students all work from the same production environment, conversations shift beyond grading assignments to coaching teams through real production decisions. Shared visibility into sprint progress, blockers, backlog priorities, and project health creates opportunities for the same types of mentoring relationships found in professional studios.
Students also experience firsthand how production management evolves as projects mature over multiple semesters. "The longer a project runs, the more valuable Jira becomes," said Brendan Engebretson, a student who served as project manager for one of Duke's largest studio teams. "Early on you're changing ideas constantly, but as deadlines get closer you need visibility into timelines, priorities, and what has to give if you're adding something new."
That experience reflects one of the program's primary goals: helping students understand not only how games are created, but how long-term production is managed from concept through completion.
Cheely also found that Jira improved collaboration by creating a shared understanding of what every team member was working on. "At first everyone kind of had their own system," Cheely said. "Once we all started really using Jira, there was a lot less confusion about task delivery. We had much better collaboration and much more clarity around the work we were doing together."
Engebretson found that Jira also helped remove emotion from difficult production discussions by giving teams objective information to guide decisions. "Instead of debating whether something felt like too much work, Jira helped us look at the data," Engebretson said. "If we wanted to add something, we could see that we'd probably have to remove something else. It gave us a much more objective way to make production decisions."
With support from Arctiq, Duke was able to introduce students to the same agile workflows, sprint management processes, and collaborative production environments commonly found in commercial game studios.
Rather than learning project management as an academic exercise, students develop the habits, communication practices, and production discipline that become part of their professional identity long before graduation.
The Results: Training that Equips Students for Professional Game Development
By embedding Jira into the foundation of the GDDI curriculum, Duke created a learning environment that closely mirrors professional game development studios.
More importantly, Jira supports a professional development model that extends well beyond the classroom. Students don't simply learn agile concepts, they spend multiple semesters operating as studio teams, developing the planning, communication, leadership, and production skills they'll carry directly into their careers.
By standardizing agile workflows in Jira, Duke improved collaboration and visibility across student studios. Shared sprint boards, backlog management, and real-time production tracking helped teams coordinate work more efficiently while giving faculty and industry mentors better insight into project progress and team performance.
For many students, the experience also reshapes how they think about leadership.
"Before coming into the program, I didn't think of myself as a manager of people or a project manager," Engebretson said. "Learning project planning completely changed my outlook. The program helped me realize I was capable of leading teams, and Jira became one of the tools that helped me develop those skills."
Cheely, whose background was in video production rather than software development, found that Jira made it easier to coordinate teammates with different working styles while providing the production visibility needed to keep everyone moving toward the same goal.
"My favorite thing is honestly the board view," Cheely said. "You can quickly see what's to do, what's in progress, what's blocked, and what's done. It gives you that big-picture view of everything the team is building."
The use of Jira has also become a differentiator when Duke discusses the program with industry partners.
"When we explain how our students work (using Jira, planning sprints, running production cycles) it changes how industry views the program," Escobar said. "It demonstrates that we are serious about preparing professionals, not just teaching theory."
That industry credibility extends beyond familiarity with a single tool. It reflects the fact that students graduate having worked in collaborative studio environments that mirror professional game development organizations, using the same production practices, agile methodologies, and team workflows they'll encounter after graduation.
"Jira is robust, powerful, and flexible," Chu said. "If students can become fluent in Jira, they can quickly learn almost any other project management platform they encounter in the industry."
For students, that preparation is tangible. Rather than entering their first professional role having only learned about agile development in theory, they leave Duke having already spent multiple semesters planning sprints, managing backlogs, leading standups, coordinating multidisciplinary teams, and delivering games in an environment designed to simulate the realities of an independent game studio.
Key Results
- More than 60 students trained on industry-standard agile workflows using Atlassian Jira, across multiple cohorts
- Multiple semesters of continuous agile project management and sprint collaboration
- Studio teams of 8–16 students collaborating on long-term game production projects
- Weekly sprint planning, standups, and production tracking across all studio teams
- Centralized project visibility for students, faculty, and industry mentors across every stage of development
- Real-world agile workflows integrated into the full game production lifecycle
- Students graduate with hands-on experience using industry-standard tools and methodologies
