What is effective work?
In this economic climate a lot of people take stock of how
they spend and examine more ways to save. I think we’re all aware of one of the
main issues facing not only the game industry but the overall economy, being “do
you hire full time or do you contract?”
Hiring full time supposedly gives more
security to the employee but more risk for the employer. Contract / part time
is less risk for the employer but less security for the employee, and if you’re
on the hunt for someone with experience, chances are contract is not their
preference.
But there’s of course more to it than that, something
perhaps even more fundamental.
Work Spurts
How many of your coworkers put in a full 8 hour day of solid
work?
This includes meetings. I think you’ll find that
particularly in creative industries, people don’t work a steady 8 hours. It
just doesn’t work like that. More often than not you’ll find that people work
in spurts. I certainly do.
Whether speaking about the artist, the designer, the audio
designer or even engineers, these spurts can last anywhere from a few hours to
over 12-14 hours. Some insane programmers I’ve worked with can get on a kick
that lasts even longer, and after 8-9 hours of steady work, regardless of how
pumped you feel, your effectiveness begins to drop.
Take Control of Time
The result of this observation is my recommendation to
managers and directors to utilize your employee’s time to your fullest
advantage. At Heatwave our President, Anthony Castoro, has instituted a 20
minute “recess” as a way to break the day up more, providing a chance for the
brain to reset and allow a bit more fertile soil for these spurts to grow.
But
it can go even further. Each full time employee has their own degree of
effectiveness based on certain tasks. At times the workload may be slower, so
speaking to this employee about where their mind would like to turn is a good
idea. Do they want to institute a skunkworks and try some new ideas? How about
interacting with members of the team they’ve never talked to before? Taking a
course to improve a skill they might need help with?
Observe
It is just as important for a manager to maintain their
employees as it is for them to maintain their profit / process / tech /
products. In a large company chances are there are a good many junior employees
who have no idea what they want to do and have no clue about how to be self
motivated.
Rather than task them and walk away, task them and observe their
work habits. Stroll casually by their desk once every few days or so without
drawing attention, and shoot a glance at exactly what they’re doing. If you
discover that they could be doing their work faster because they’re doing too
much web surfing, you’re not out of line to threaten to restrict their web
access and also ask what it is that motivates them. Web surfing is the brain’s
way of saying it is bored and needs input. It takes practice to get out of this
habit and focus on tasks you need to complete.
Another way to generate effective spurts is to provide
mandatory breaks like recess, and at the same time give the employee just a
little more than you know they can handle. Don’t crunch them to death. The idea
here is to see how much an employee can grow their skill set.
The best people
I’ve worked with are confronted with difficult problems and talk to as many
people as they can consistently to get that problem solved. But they may not
have started out this way. When an employee is shown that asking questions and
maintaining a calm professional demeanor while doing so is a great way to solve
problems, they can grow very quickly as problem solvers and rise through the
ranks.
All these concepts and many more are the reason you see
business books about “how to get it done” and “be effective”. People write about
this all the time but very seldom put it into action for one simple reason:
it’s hard.
But at the very least managers armed with the knowledge of spurts as
well as observation of their teams will quickly be able to discover what can
really get people motivated, since everyone has different motivators. And with
this, their team will become more effective, because a motivated team with
consistent accomplishments reflects back on the manager and generates
inspiration.
|
My work habits border on obsession. I don't like leaving the office in the middle of something or without feeling like I've accomplished something. This usually means I take a late lunch or none at all, and I'm often late going home.
There's a rhythm to anyone's day, but I find I'm more creative in the mornings and more productive in the afternoon/evening. Of course, everyone is more more productive with clear goals and clear deadlines.
A manager (producer) actually does a fair amount of production. Generating and assigning tasks, developing asset budgets, verifying and assigning bugs, developing long-term plans, prep for meetings...
You might not see it as a finished product in a game, but they definitely do some type of work that doesn't involve being in meetings.
Nope. In the games industry I'm indie still.
The point is, in my possition I know what the work is about and make my productivity ten times more eficient. For a manager more productivity is making people work more hours, that's the point. I try as much as I can bring that improvement mentality (or maybe I'm just designing creative ways to work, the same way I love designing games, who knows...) into my game development work, for begging, I'm overnighting, until I make it better. (It's 3:17 AM here as I write)
Coming to web surfing - a lot of managers make the mistake of doing just too many meetings and normally more than web surfing this is what causes an issue.
I realize Managers have a lot of tasks in Game Development. Mine was in response to Benjamin. I figured time spent talking, assigning and coaching was considered 'meetings' and 'Production' is the creation and design of parts specifically involved in the game.