TEAMS
In This Chapter
• Project Leadership
• Picking Leads
• Team Building
• Team Buy-in and Motivation
• Quality of Life
7.1 I
NTRODUCTION
G
ame development is a young industry—both in age of the average em-
ployee and in the age of the industry. This youth is reflected in the sense
of immaturity that is commonly found in development teams. Some
people have the misconception that working at a game company is all fun and
games. Although this is the case to some degree, employees are still expected to
act in a professional manner—this means showing up to work on time and tak-
ing responsibility for completing any assigned work. One of the major responsi-
bilities of a producer is managing this young talent and ensuring that everyone
makes a useful contribution to the game.
To be a strong and effective producer, you must develop your leadership
skills so you can maintain the team’s morale, take care of the team’s needs, and
keep everyone motivated throughout the game’s development. Motivation can
be a challenge as it requires managing many different personalities, helping peo-
ple discover their strengths, and neutralizing any risks to team morale, such as
Chapter 7Chapter 7
108 THE GAME PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 2/E
shortened schedules, difficult personalities, and so on. The producer must take
this responsibility seriously; otherwise, people will stop collaborating with each
other, and the quality of the game will suffer.
If the producer is committed to building and maintaining a strong team,
many of the other risks on a project will be minimized, mainly because the lines
of communication are open, and people are aware of these risks much sooner in
the process. Because of this awareness, the risks have less chance of snowballing
into more serious problems. This chapter discusses some ways to build strong
teams and maintain project momentum, even during stressful times.
Recommended Reading, The Essential Drucker
Peter F. Drucker is has written on the topic of management for over 30 years
and is considered one of the foremost experts on management. He believes that
in order to get the best work out of people, you must manage their strengths and
present them ample opportunities for personal and professional development.
HOW THE PRODUCER BUILDS A TEAM
Tracy Fullerton, Assistant Professor
University of Southern California
When I am a producer, I think of my role as being quite a bit about social
engineering—making sure there is an environment in which people can do their
best work, feel like they are contributing their best efforts, and have the necessary
resources to do the work. Some other people will tell you that the producer’s job is
to get the project in on time and under budget. This is also very important, but I am
more focused on making sure that the team and the processes are running smoothly.
This involves a lot of walking around and talking to people, so I can see what people
are working on and help facilitate their collaboration with others on the team.
The best possible way to manage the team is to make sure that every single per-
son on the team, including the executives, feels a sense of authorship. Sometimes,
not everyone wants everyone else to feel that sense of authorship; they want to make
decisions on their own and dictate to everyone else, and that’s where you can get
into hairy situations. But the best situation is if you can keep people communicat-
ing and create a good atmosphere in which the executives feel like their input is
important, and the artists, technologists, and designers feel like their opinions have
an impact on the game.
TEAMS 109
The Essential Drucker is an abridged reference of his articles on management
and is recommended reading for anyone who wants to become a better leader.
The book discusses such topics as making effective decisions, hiring good people,
and many others that focus on how to be a better manager. Complete informa-
tion on this title can be found in Appendix C, “Resources.”
7.2 PROJECT LEADERSHIP
The producer is viewed as the team leader and is usually the official represen-
tative of the team to marketing, management, and anyone else external to the
team. Additionally, the producer is directly responsible for the well-being of the
project and everyone on the team, so he must be an effective and positive leader.
If the team is headed by an ineffective or negative leader, then the team and
the game are going to suffer. If you don’t think you possess natural leadership
qualities, don’t worry. More than likely if you are already a producer, you have
already exhibited enough leadership qualities to be entrusted with a team and
a game. If you are hoping to become a producer, you can develop any existing
leadership qualities you already have. However, you will need to take the initia-
tive to develop your skills, as companies rarely have training programs in place
for such development.
So what is a leader? A leader is someone who presents himself with con-
fidence and has strong vision, values, and an appreciation for the people with
whom he is working. He is able to pull together a group of people to achieve
a shared vision and hold people accountable for their work. He is constantly
projecting passion, enthusiasm, and a positive attitude about his work. Most im-
portant, a leader has the courage and initiative to take risks, make unpopular
decisions, and do whatever is necessary to achieve the project goals.
A leader is defined more by what he does, than by his assigned position on
the team, which means that someone else besides the producer can be a leader
for the team. It might be hard to pick out the leaders in your company, but if you
think about it, someone will come to mind—like the well-respected artist who is
always driving people to create the highest quality art.
The good news is that you can become a better leader if you work at it. The
key is to have a good understanding of your personality and temperament so you
can develop your natural leadership abilities. There are a few basic leadership
archetypes—someone charismatic who inspires people to do the impossible, the
strong silent type who leads by example, and a person who personally works with
each member of the team to bring out their best qualities. Become familiar with
them and figure out which style or styles best fit you; you will find that differ-
ent leadership styles work better for different situations. If you don’t work to
110 THE GAME PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 2/E
improve your leadership skills, you might find yourself in charge of a team that
is demoralized, unhappy, and unproductive.
Recommended Reading, Leadership
Project Leadership by James P. Lewis provides practical advice for someone in
a leadership position on a project team. Several techniques are presented for
improving your leadership skills.
The Leadership Challenge, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner is a
research study of all types of leaders in different organizations. The findings are
distilled into fundamental leadership practices.
On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis is considered to be a leadership
primer with in-depth information on leadership characteristics and what you can
do to develop these characteristics for yourself.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey is a respected
resource for self-improvement, presenting seven main areas of growth that will
have a positive impact on your interpersonal relationships.
7.3 PICKING LEADS
As discussed in Chapter 2 “Roles on the Team,” people in lead art, design,
engineering, and quality assurance positions are not normally content creators.
Instead they manage the content creators and provide leadership and guidance
for the project. The most effective leads have expertise in their fields and strong
people skills, which means they can advise people, such as the producer or junior
team members, on what techniques and processes are needed to get the desired
result. For example, an art lead who is knowledgeable of the technical limitations
of console hardware can converse intelligently with both art and engineering
about what tools are needed to create realistic terrain. In addition, the art lead
helps the art team to successfully complete their project tasks by managing the
schedule, providing useful feedback, answering questions, arranging for tutorials
in new techniques, defining the art production pipeline, and other things. A lead
engineer and lead designer provide the same types of services to the engineering
and design teams, respectively.
Strong leads are an invaluable asset for any producer. If the producer can
depend on the leads to manage the day-to-day art, engineering, and design
tasks, he can concentrate on the other aspects of the project, such as localiza-
tions, managing external vendors, dealing with the marketing and legal depart-
ments, updating senior management on the project status, and providing the
leads and team with the necessary resources to do their jobs. If a lead is not as
strong in one area as another, the producer must provide training for the lead
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to improve in that area, to avoid problems down the line. For example, a lead
designer who is a talented designer but not easily approachable, cannot manage
the design team effectively. The other designers might be reluctant to come
to him with concerns for fear of being yelled at or rudely dismissed. If a lead
designer continues acting this way, even with proper coaching and training, the
producer may consider replacing him with someone who may not be as talented
a designer but has much better people skills.
When choosing leads, there is a tendency to appoint someone who is tal-
ented and has successfully shipped a few games. The benefit of doing this kind
of appointment is that an expert is readily available to offer technical or artistic
guidance to team members. However, this person may not be prepared for the
management and administrative responsibilities of the position. They go from
being a well-respected content creator, to someone who has to start managing
people, schedules, and office politics, and they may have little interest in accept-
ing a lead position because of these types of tasks. They might prefer to remain a
content creator and leading the team in a more unofficial capacity.
In fact, a lead should not be the most artistically talented or technically
gifted person on the team. You want to keep these talents doing what they do
best—creating high-quality assets for the game. If you move these high-quality
content creators to lead positions, they won’t have time to create content, and
the quality of the game will be less than it can be. You may also find the produc-
tion schedule suffers if you remove one of your most prolific asset creators to a
position where they don’t create level building schedule may quickly start to fall
behind.
When picking leads, focus on choosing the best managers for the job, not the
most technically skilled person. The people with strong management abilities
have a tendency to be organized, work well with others, posses strong commu-
nication skills, are knowledgeable in their field, and have earned the respect of
their peers. It is easier to help someone improve their knowledge of artistic and
technical techniques, than it is to train someone to be a better people person, so
keep this in mind when picking leads on the project.
Ineffective leads who do not improve upon their weakness can put a project
at risk. How many times have you heard someone on the development team
complain about how ineffective or useless their lead is? If this complaint is com-
mon and is not addressed immediately, the people under this lead will stop
asking questions, pointing out risks, and making progress on the game. Instead
they will quickly lose interest in their contribution to the game and watch things
on the project slowly erode as communication breaks down between the team
members.
In some cases, a producer might not have the authority to replace an ineffec-
tive lead who did not respond to coaching. In such instances, a liability is created
around which the producer has to work. The producer might decide to take on
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