Strides Interactive

What a team really needsFiled Under: Weekly Tuesday Dose of goodness

Hi all,

This week, I’ll talk about something else rather than technical. It’s more of a buildup of a team.

I’ve heard countless of stereotyping suggestions of getting or even hiring experts to help me work on my games and game engine.

Is that really a good suggestion?

Let’s find out…

So, as the post suggests, what does a team really need?

Let’s explore a few of my own perspective based on the perspectives of different players in a team.

Team Member

A team member, depending on his/her skills and worth in the project, may desire to have a strong leader in the team. While this is always the case, they also look for some independence from their leader.

A weak team member would usually hope that there’ll be an ally team member who’s stronger and more dependable.

A normal team member would usually hope for a job scope that is manageable and thus yearns for a good manager.

A strong team member on the other hand would demand certain things to be done. A good and strong team member can actually drive the team forward if the team lead permits. However, there’s always a tingling suspicion of mutiny hanging in the air. Since a strong team member usually has conflicting views with the team lead.

A destructive team member will eventually desire to usurp decision making rights from the team lead, rendering the latter a puppet in the later stages of the project. He first does so by giving indirect assignments to team members since the entire project is more or less interrelated. Next, he becomes extremely active in the project, giving many ideas and suggestions and is set to see his ideas go through. (That’s if there’s no one to regulate the decision making authority)

Team Leader

Alright, as you can see, team members may contribute a lot to a team’s progress, but their desires may not necessarily be what the team really need.

As a team leader, the focus would be to find the right people for the right problem. The notion of the right people sometimes fall wayward and become the most talented people.

Now, does talented equate to right?

I don’t think so.

First of all, in one of my earliest posts,  I did mention that the best technology doesn’t necessarily make the best games. The strength of the technology is only as strong as how the developers make use of it. That means, having a super powerful engine doesn’t mean that developers can use it to develop games.

Next, the same applies to a team as well.

The right team doesn’t equate to the most talented individuals in a team.

A good team is one that is balanced and has different individual strengths and weaknesses.

A good team management is about balance. It’s definitely not based on technical knowledge or strength. Having superior technical knowledge can at best command or demand respect, and that respect doesn’t necessarily mean that this person will be able to lead or manage.

People who measures the strength of a team via its composition of technical talents are usually superficial in their beliefs towards a game development team. It’s much worst if one of the team members actually subscribe to such shallow beliefs.

What a team really needs

In my opinion, a team really needs a group of people who can at least produce and cooperate. The rest of the qualities, while sweetens the qualifications of a team, can be done away with most of the time.

A team needs to move forward. That being said, it also mean that everybody; not just a single individual, move forward, improves and succeed in the team.

A team also needs a high level perspective on progress, which is why a manager is required. While most teams out there regard their manager as the leader, it may not necessarily be true in games development. Why? Cause, sometimes the Game Designer/Producer is the lead, the Project Manager on the other hand, manages the user requirements, expectations of the producer and at the same time, manages the schedule and task allocation to the developers, testers, artists and so on.

Lastly, a game development team needs a true Game Producer. This person must be impartial and disciplined enough to stick to his/her requirements and expectations. Flexibility must be exercised if the technical or design limits are reached. This person must have the capacity to hold an universe in his mind at any one time. This universe is of course the game world, game moods, game mechanics, game emotions and game psychologies (in short, game vision). The user’s experience must be crafted correctly so that the game will deliver the RIGHT experience to the expected audience (and not some graphic candy shit without any decent gameplay).

Therefore, working on a game isn’t as simple as many thinks. Working on a simple tic-tac-toe weekend hobby project is certainly nothing compared to working on a full scale game.

Which brings me to the point of what a team really need once more. That is - productivity and cooperation.

Talents or not, expert or not, experience or not - all those are secondary considerations or good-to-have qualities.

I do hope that this post can encourage some form of constructive criticisms and discussions. I do look forward to be corrected since I may be wrong after all.

Signing off,
Jeremy