TEAMS 117
The exercise begins with each person answering the following four
questions:
■
How does the company see your role on the team?
■
How do you see your role on this team?
■
What resources do you need in order to effectively carry out your role?
■
What do you need to know about other people’s roles in order to do your job
better?
Each person writes answers to these questions and comes prepared to dis-
cuss them in a meeting. Each person begins by presenting his answers, and then
everyone discusses them and comes to an agreement on how that person’s role
is best defined. Ten to 20 minutes should be allocated to each person. If you do
this for a large team, schedule a few separate meetings instead of trying to have
a single meeting that lasts for hours. At the end of the meeting, role definitions
can be typed up for each person and posted on the team website and displayed
in the team rooms. Figure 7.1 is an example of a spreadsheet that can be used to
organize this information after the exercise is completed.
O
N
T
H
E
C
D
Cross-Training
Cross-training is a method where people on the team are trained in disciplines
they haven’t worked in before. For example, have an artist follow an engineer
for a day and learn how to code features for the art tool. Or have an artist spend
FIGURE 7.1 Example of a role definition spreadsheet.
Role Organization Expectations Role on Project What do I need from others?
What do I need to know about
others?
Producer -get project done on schedule
-meet quality standards of project
-lead and motivate the team
-carry vision of project to
management, marketing, and
external people
-lead the team in getting the project
done on time
-schedule and track progress
-interface with management on
behalf of the team
-hold the vision of the project and
communicate to team
-motivate the team
-deal with personnel issues
-order the necessary resources for
the team
-set up production processes
-work with marketing and PR
-work with leads on management
and communication skills
-coordinate localizations
-work with external vendors
-be knowledgeable about what
everyone is doing on project and
the progress they are making
-keep team informed of progress
and up-to-date on any project
changes
-set up and maintain team website
-indentify risks, red flags, and
solutions
-notification of any risks or red
flags
-information on how each person is
doing on the project and how they
are performing in their role
-information on what resources you
need to get your job finished
-assistance with communicating
information to the rest of the team
-what each person's special skills
are on the project
-what each person needs on the
project to get their work done
-understanding of engineering, art,
and design limitations
118 THE GAME PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 2/E
the day testing the game with the QA department and learn the ins and outs of
testing, logging, and regressing bugs. Once people spend some time in someone
else’s role, they are more appreciative of that person’s role on the project.
This practice might even lead to improvements in the process. For example,
if an artist walks an engineer through the process of importing a level into the
game and then has the engineer do it, the engineer might realize there is a way to
improve the current set of tools to make this easier for the artist. A designer with
some basic training in how to create 3D levels will gain a greater understanding
of how to document his level designs on paper so they are more easily translated
into 3D spaces by an artist.
Cross-training is a good way to integrate new people into the team as well.
On their first week, they can spend part of each day shadowing an artist, engi-
neer, or designer. Shadowing can help them more quickly become part of the
team and learn what people’s roles and responsibilities are on the project.
Recommended Reading, Management
The Tao of Coaching by Max Landsberg offers several solid coaching exer-
cises accompanied by fun to read and easy-to-understand examples.
The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks is a well-respected book that
contains important insights about the human cost of software development. This
book is highly recommended for anyone working in software development.
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, authors of First Break All the Rules:
What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, researched managers at
several companies to determine what qualities great managers possess.
Peopleware by Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister. This book is geared to-
ward team leads and managers who head up software development teams. It
offers a lot of practical advice for building teams, picking the right leads, and
increasing productivity.
Seating Arrangements
Seating arrangements can impact the strength of the team. If you have all the
engineers, designers, and artists sitting in separate groups, getting communica-
tion to flow between the groups is difficult. If like disciplines are sitting together,
they will have a tendency to focus on only what assets they are creating for the
game, instead of taking into consideration what the other disciplines are con-
tributing as well. Situations will arise in which artists complain about engineers,
engineers complain about designers, designers complain about artists, and so on.
Team morale will suffer, as an “us” versus “them” mentality will develop within
the team.
While artists, engineers, and designers might prefer to group themselves by
discipline, with the reasoning that it is more conducive to consulting with your
TEAMS 119
peers on a technical or artistic issue, such grouping does nothing to build the
team. A better seating arrangement is one in which people working on similar
features are grouped together, so they can be in immediate contact with other
people working on similar functionality for the game. For example, grouping
level artists, graphics engineers, and scripters together creates a cross-functional
team within the team that handles all aspects of creating a playable level in the
game. Even though those people are in different disciplines, they are dependent
on each other’s work to successfully get something up and running in the game.
You can also seat the animators and the engineers working on the animation
system together, which helps streamline the feedback process.
In addition, think about the personality types that are sitting near each other.
If possible, make sure that positive and enthusiastic people are seated through-
out the team rooms. These people bring a natural positive energy to the team
and really get people excited about what they are working on. They also help
mitigate the negative energy from people who have a tendency to complain.
The team might object to switching around the sitting arrangements, espe-
cially if they are not used to doing so. In addition, they may be concerned about
the increased noise level in an environment where people are encouraged to talk
with each other. To keep the working environment productive, inform people
that any meetings lasting more than a few minutes and/or consisting of three
or more people must be conducted in areas outside the team room so as not to
disturb others. You can also invest in noise-canceling headphones for everyone
on the team. This way, people can feel more comfortable in the more open
environment.
Team Meetings
Team meetings are also a good opportunity to enhance team building. As dis-
cussed earlier in this chapter, team meetings are a great way to introduce new
team members and become more familiar with existing team members. Team
meetings are primarily a venue for discussing the progress of the game and to
provide a forum for team members to raise questions and concerns. As devel-
opment teams get larger, this regular forum will be more important to team
members who are not privy to the day-to-day happenings with everything on the
project.
Provide a complete project update in each meeting. Discuss what progress
has been made in the overall game plan, what marketing and PR events are being
planned, how things are progressing with getting approvals on licenses, the cur-
rent status of any hardware requests, and anything else that happened in the past
week on the project. This information helps people gain an understanding of the
game as a whole and see how their work fits into the big picture. The team’s mo-
rale will be boosted to hear how much work was accomplished in the past week.
120 THE GAME PRODUCTION HANDBOOK, 2/E
Team meetings are also a good opportunity to discuss any rumors circulating
about the project or the company. If there is no truth to the rumors, make it clear
in the team meeting. If there is some truth to the rumor, set the team straight
on exactly what the situation is. Clarifying is much better than allowing people to
start basing decisions on rumors that have grown out of control. Also discuss any
upcoming milestones and potential schedule changes. If people are reminded a
few weeks in advance of an impending milestone, they may start working more
efficiently to avoid crunch time before the milestone is due. If the schedule
changes for any reason—the deadlines are shortened or extended—inform
the team about it and explain the reasons why. The team has a vested interest in
the game and has a right to know when there are any changes to the plan.
Establish a regular meeting time so that the team meeting becomes a fixture
in the team’s mind. Jot down notes during the week of what items to discuss in
the next team meeting. People will come to rely on the team meeting as a re-
source for useful information. It also doesn’t hurt to occasionally provide some
cookies or donuts during the meeting.
Team Website
A well-maintained team website or wiki functions as the central source of infor-
mation about the project and is a great team-building resource. The website is
a living repository for design documents, prototypes, task lists, pictures of team
members, and any other project-related materials. The website should be well-
organized so that people can easily find the information they need. Types of
information to include on the website are as follows:
■
Design documents
■
Technical documents
■
Meeting schedules
■
Meeting minutes
■
Weekly status reports
■
Marketing updates
■
Process guidelines
■
Vacations and absences
■
Key milestone deadlines
■
Milestone deliverable descriptions
■
QA testing plans
■
Contact information (phone numbers and personal email addresses)
■
Forms (expense reports, change requests, and so on)
■
Names and tasks for each team member
■
Prototypes
■
Development schedules
TEAMS 121
■
Play testing guidelines
■
Important announcements (new team members, schedule changes, and
so on)
Storing this information in a publicly accessible place allows the team mem-
bers to be as informed as they choose to be about the project. Some people will
rarely visit the team website; others will make it their home page and check it on a
daily basis. The team website is also a great tool for educating new people about the
project or for directing management to the most current set of design documents.
To make the team website an effective tool, always keep it up-to-date. Then
the team can rely on the website for the most current project information.
This practice also ensures that everyone on the team has equal access to all the
information—not just the few people who constantly check in with the leads
on the status of the project. The minute the team realizes the website does not
contain the latest information, they will stop using it as a development tool and
instead rely heavily on the producer and leads to directly supply them with the
necessary information.
7.5 TEAM BUY-IN AND MOTIVATION
Team buy-in and motivation are important elements of a strong team. If the
team feels ownership or has buy-in, it is more effective and produces higher
quality work. People who are highly motivated and passionate about the game
will also not mind putting in the extra work when necessary to make the project
the best it can be. If you can take advantage of their passion and implement man-
datory crunch times for an extended period, you will de-motivate the team and
likely result in lower quality of work and a group of unhappy people.
When people believe their feedback, opinions, and concerns are being con-
sidered when making decisions about the project, they will buy into the project
objectives. This support also results when people can clearly picture the project’s
success in their minds, which means the game ships on time to great reviews,
and it is a number one best-seller for months. If people can visualize and share
this success, they are more than willing to work on a project for six months or two
years to make this success a reality.
If people on the team are not motivated or don’t have buy-in, you can have
a serious problem. If one or two unhappy people are on the team, this number
will increase quickly if these people are visibly unmotivated or vocal about their
dissatisfaction with the project. When this happens, the producer must deal with
the situation as soon as possible in order to prevent damage to the overall morale
of the team.
..................Content has been hidden....................
You can't read the all page of ebook, please click here login for view all page.