3.) Adaptation

​​

• Recognizing higher value user stories or opportunities for process improvement and evolving the project accordingly may seem like a simple proposition on the surface, but in practice, adaptation always involves some degree of risk, anxiety, and discomfort that a team must be shepherded through.

​​

• For instance, while working on Juice & Glory, my team had a phenomenally talented technical artist who produced some character assets that he was particularly proud of. This team member was also in charge of our game's camera, and over time, we found that the camera was zooming in closer and closer to his fantastic character models...at the expense of gameplay. User playtesting told us that the camera had become a serious issue, but this tech artist was not so keen to adapt the camera to what our inspections told us we should do. I helped this team member to see the necessity of adapting the camera but eased the pain of the change by finding another opportunity to show off his assets in all their glory--a match victory screen. The game was improved by both the camera adjustment and the addition of the victory screen.

​​

​​

4.) Commitment

​​

• When we take a job, we commit to a company culture; when we begin a project, we commit to a valuable vision; when others depend on our work, we commit to an agreed upon definition of done. All of these are important aspects of professional commitment, but I think that the most impactful commitment we can make is to each other. Loyalty, fidelity, whatever you want to call it, making an earnest effort to help each other learn, grow, and fulfill our potential, especially when things aren't going well, can create team bonds that transcend any one project or company.

​​

• I have first hand experience with this kind of bond from my time working on Sword of Atlas. To make a long story short, when our first-time Narrative Director was struggling to keep his commitments and began holding up development, many team members wanted to replace him. I, however, committed myself to doing whatever it took to keep our narrative on track while working with the struggling lead and helping him to find the style of work that fit him. I devoted myself to supporting him and protecting the narrative team as a whole from doubts within the team at large.  While this lead did eventually leave the project for personal reasons, we are still good friends and the commitment I showed to being in his corner enabled us to build enough of a narrative framework for me to smoothly transition into the role of Interim Narrative Lead and the story ended up being the star of our game.

​​

​​

5.) Focus

​​

• In a cross-functional team full of passionate and creative people all working toward the same goal for months or even years on end, devoting our full attention to the task at hand can sometimes be challenging. New ideas, stubborn problems, future milestones, and even simple curiosity can all distract from the work that needs to be done in the here and now. Yet staying focused is the only way to reliably build something out of nothing. I've found that making progress visible through things like burndown charts and team-wide demos is a vital ingredient in maintaining focus over the course of a project.​

​

• Working on Shadownest, I gained a keen appreciation for the difficulties of keeping a team focused. The project got off to a slow start and more than one of our key stakeholders had a habit of suggesting designs which clashed with our most fundamental design pillars, or alternatively, latching onto largely trivial design elements and inflating their importance. Of course all feedback has value and should be explored for the seeds of actionable items, but this experience also showed me the importance of keeping the team's mindset calm and steady so that we could stay focused on completing goals we'd started before evaluating changes in direction. The project did involve a major design pivot early on, but after that, staying focused on incrementally building our vision rather than panicking and losing our convictions proved wise when everything "clicked" together midway through development.

​​

​​

6.) Openness

​​

• It's critical to be open and honest about the work challenges of both stakeholder requests and personal aspirations. Hiding behind a "can-do" yes-man attitude for fear of confrontation deliberately undermines the process of risk-management and only harms the team, project, and company in the long run. Similarly, ignoring team members' personal growth goals can lead to team dysfunction and even extraordinarily costly turnover.​

​

• A good example of openness leading to an in-sync team comes from my time on Shadownest. At the start of production, we had few constraints on where we could take the project, so every team member shared their personal growth goals and things they wanted to learn. The combination of these disparate aspirations made for a much more ambitious project than required, but after freely and openly discussing the potential risks and benefits, we all committed to tackling that ambitious vision as a team because every individual felt bought-in on a personal level. We didn't kid ourselves about the challenges ahead, and every team member expressed that their goals had been achieved during our postmortem.

​​

​​

7.) Respect

​​

• In a creative field populated by diverse, passionate, intelligent people, disagreements and misunderstandings are bound to occur. Professionals who believe that every single person they're working with is a rational and capable human being acting on the best information they have are far more likely to discover mutual solutions than people who view debate in terms of winners and losers, villains and victims. Respecting the perspectives of others is a pre-requisite to any kind of collaboration.

​​

• Most of the time, people aren't consciously disrespectful, though. Identifying ignorance and sensing perceived slights is just as important as calling out obnoxious disrespect. An episode occurred while I was working on Shadownest that really highlights this: one rather prickly and direct team member was being more blunt than usual in his feedback on level blockouts, and while his critiques applied just as much to me as they did to the team's other level designer, I felt that he was much more harsh toward her. In fact, I thought that the behavior was starting to become a pattern. My first instinct was to speak directly to the offender and assert that sexism was not okay even if it was not deliberate on his part, but then I thought that the other level designer was a capable and independent actor who didn't need anyone to speak for her. So instead of confronting the ignorant party directly, I first spoke to the victim to express what I'd observed, offer my support, and get her perspective. She appreciated my concern but didn't share it; by respecting her autonomy, I saved an unnecessary confrontation (the sexist behavior did not return, for one reason or another) and saved putting my fellow level designer in an uncomfortable situation.​

​​

​​

8.) Courage

​​

• At the end of the day, if we don't demonstrate the bravery to take on risky, difficult challenges, then the teams and products we build won't be worth anyone's time. Playing it safe doesn't change the world. We need to be willing to do the hard things because they're the right things.

​​

• While working on a rapid student prototype called Blaze Masters, I failed to recognize the signs that a team member was feeling unheard until finally, just as we thought we'd reached the end of a meeting, his frustrations erupted. He was an artist who vehemently disagreed with another artist on our team about the direction we'd decided to take and he threatened to quit the project if he didn't get his way. I resisted the human urge to cut him loose then and there and took the time to really listen to his concerns and discuss them with the team and ultimately facilitated a solution that satisfied both artists. But that didn't take courage. What took courage was learning through a student on another team later that week that the two artists had more than a professional disagreement and that their personal animosity was worsening. At that point, they were both fulfilling the needs of the project and I could have let it be for the remaining week of our assignment, but I wouldn't abide such a toxic team environment. I spoke to both of them individually, more than once, to get to the bottom of the issue and cultivate some mutual respect between them, if only based on their capabilities. Eventually, we cleared the air in a team setting and they buried the hatchet. They went on to work closely together on other projects and both expressed their gratitude to me for caring enough to go the extra mile.​

​​

​​

​​