Some Things That Went Wrong in our Flash Teams

Early on in term 1 I was speaking to another student several terms ahead about our classes. When we got to the topic of our production and team-management classes—the art and science of managing people and workflow to create quality products on time and under budget—he said "that stuff is all just common sense." He was dead wrong, of course, though I kept my opinion to myself since I was still in meet-and-greet mode.

The truth is that many people, maybe all of them, don't really know how to work well with others until they've been tested. They don't understand that their behaviors have sweeping effects on their peers, that poor attitudes and stubbornness are poison, and that ignoring the documentation or the stated purpose of a meeting is costing everyone on their team time, money, and patience. Dealing with others is harder than the most technical hard skill you can come up with because the targets are always moving. It shouldn't surprise anyone that being an effective team member is a skillset to be practiced and mastered, like any other.

I know a number of us GD23s know that now, though they may not have before our Flash projects this past term. At the outset of term two we had 6+ people interested in project and team management as potential careers. Now I think we're down to three, including myself. The common sense that is anything but scared them off.

Let's talk about some of those groups, the challenges they faced, and what I believe went wrong. First, though, I should point out that Marc and I, as class reps, sat down late last term and sorted out the groups around a strong technical core, then randomly assigned the rest. We then shuffled two people around because we didn't think they would work well together and ended with teams that, on the surface, looked very well balanced.

I should also point out that despite the problems in most teams, the games turned out pretty well.

Here's what happened.

Group 1 - This group had one member that was married to his/her ideas early on, creating division from the get-go. As time went on, this division caused bruised egos and hard feelings as the group continued to work. This problem member stopped producing and eventually stopped communicating with the team.

Group 2 - Group 2 also had a problem member that told everyone he/she wanted to work hard and improve their skillset, but then repeatedly failed to deliver. Attendance and not following instructions were serious issues that didn't improve with time.

Group 3 - With big plans and confidence, this team looked ready to succeed early on, but technical hurdles and a serious decline in engagement from most team members saw them scaling back again and again. At least one member of this group regularly made playing Skyrim for long periods of time a priority, which is obviously time that could have been better spent.

As you can see, a single team member with a bad attitude can have an enormous impact on the group, but there are also strong lessons about pre-production to take away from group 3, who were overconfident and let an impressive scope crush their spirits when the ideas couldn't pan out. In addition, ideas are cheap and everyone has them so you simply can't come to that initial brainstorming meeting stuck on one. Lose the ego, or be prepared for difficult times ahead.

To circle back to my original point, that project and team management is as complex and challenging as the thousands of people who are working in the game industry, each of those problems above could have been at least mitigated by a good project manager willing to lead a team through the "boring" stuff that is deadly important to the team's success. Careful scoping, building buy-in early, encouraging ideas, maintaining open communication, setting and maintaining deadlines and standards—these and many other  leadership-related tasks and qualities will ensure success over brilliant design or amazing art every time.

Anyway, I just wanted to share some of the challenges our class went through during this challenging term. I can't wait to be one of the guys channeling all of the talent I am seeing towards a unified vision in just a few short months. :)

Thanks for stopping by.