Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.
-- Henry Ford
As
a leader, you’re going to encounter potential team members with a
variety of backgrounds. An ambitious applicant who has tested a couple
of games may have impressed you in the interview by dressing upscale
and dropping all the right names but you had to ask the tough questions
to see how much genuine desire was under the bravado. An applicant with
a ton of experience who couldn’t look you in the eye during the
interview probably wasn’t the right person for the producer slot but
might be a brilliant artist who is happy doing his thing 24/7 without
complaining. The veteran female producer who said she’d like a chance
to mentor others might turn out to be a great asset when newcomers are
shell-shocked by crunch time. It’s all about learning to read a resume
and conduct an interview where you, not the applicant, were in control.
So you finally hired your team, had an awesome kick-off party and
established who’s the best Halo player in the office. Now it’s time to work!
Define Your Management Style
There
are lots of management styles but no matter which one(s) you use,
success ultimately depends on your ability to adapt your style to the
team’s changing needs. While you don’t need to be a tyrant about every
single thing the team does, firm leadership is the foundation of
collaborative, cooperative and efficient teamwork. The team needs to
understand that no matter how much fun they thought making games would
be, it’s hard work because it’s a business. Your team management
tactics may vary form autocratic to liberal but even the most tolerant
and sharing of leaders needs to be able to guide the team effectively.
Be Flexible
Working
on even the best team under the most ideal circumstances can be very
demanding. While each member of the team has an individual own role and
responsibility, they should remain flexible and willing to adapt to
change. Show flexibility by sharing aspects of your leadership role,
and help team members by providing an assistant to share or take over
some of their duties. As a team develops and progresses, look at
individual roles, and modify them as and when the task requires it.
Delegate
Even
the best leader can’t do it alone. Delegation is an important tool for
conserving team resources, including yours. Unfortunately, those who
volunteer aren’t always the right people for the task. A wise leader
knows how to spot the best candidates for delegated tasks and avoid
those whose work will impair the team’s progress. A good rule of thumb
is never ask someone to do a job that you haven’t done or wouldn’t do.
Delegation has its pitfalls, so you need to be able to identify the best (and worst) people for a job:
HELIUM HAND
LADDER CLIMBER
The
team member is always volunteering to help, regardless of workload.
Some people can handle multiple tasks very well; others continue to
volunteer eagerly but have time management issues that will negatively
affect the schedule.
The
team member volunteers but it’s apparent that the purpose is
self-serving rather than team supporting. In cases where problems
occur, this person is the one doing the finger pointing to insure
promotion.
EAGER BUT UNABLE
RESISTANT
The
team member can’t do the job but volunteers anyhow and then refuses all
offers of assistance. The job either won’t get done or will be done so
poorly that it requires re-assignment and results in conflict and a
schedule hit.
The team
member is happy to accept as much responsibility for a specific task as
you will assign, will accept input from others and will follow through
on all commitments.
UNTRAINED BUT WILLING
IDEAL
The
team member doesn’t have the knowledge to do the task but is willing to
try, and happy to be trained or mentored to succeed. While not your
first choice, this person is better than one who refuses to try or has
a bad track record.
The
team member is happy to accept as much responsibility for a specific
task as you will assign, will accept input from others and will follow
through on all commitments.
Sometimes
people are assigned to teams for “political” reasons. If you’re lucky,
the person becomes a valuable member of the team; if not, you may have
to monitor activity to be sure that the person doesn’t impede the
group’s progress. As a rule, never assign “busy work” to a team member
unless you have no other recourse; most of the time, that task doesn’t
really need to be done anyhow and should be junked.
An
important part of being on a team is learning to share (even the
leader) – which means that you shouldn’t save the plum assignments for
yourself!
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