Do you have a lead animator and a lead modeler reporting into a lead artist?

Frank Rogan: On previous projects, I've seen the lead animator serve as a separate lead and team from environmental and character art, although the two groups obviously work very close.

On other projects, one lead artist oversees both art and animation. That's a significant chunk of work, though, and requires someone very special in that role. Thankfully, I've enjoyed working with just such a person!

For modeling, I've not seen it broken down so that there's one lead modeler. More often, I've seen it broken down into areas of expertise - as in, one modeler is particularly good with certain types of characters, while another is better at modeling key environmental props.

Justin D'Onofrio: As we're working remotely with our art studio, it's a split structure. The studio's art tech reports to their art manager, who reports primarily to our in-house creative lead. In-house, our 3D modeler reports to our creative lead.

Robbie Edwards: Organizationally, yes, but not with those titles. We refer to our workgroup leads as coordinators (i.e. Animation Coordinator).

Do you think a more flat or "pod"-based structure works better?

Frank Rogan: Flat structures are obviously best for communication, a shared sense of purpose and a speedy, useful approval process. It's very easy to stratify the team structure to the point where the stratification becomes meaningless.

Frank Rogan served as producer on THQ/Gas Powered Games' Supreme Commander.

At the same time, a "pod-based" structure - a team divided into functional, cross-discipline groups - sounds like the best of all possible worlds, but that can fall on its face, too, if there's no clear leadership within the pod. Pods can work, but it requires a special group of people. If the nature of the problem requires cross-discipline skill, and it can be time-boxed, I'm much more inclined to put together "tiger teams" to solve a short-term problem.

Ben Gunstone: For us [a flat structure] works fine. I think if you were working with bigger teams it may be the wrong solution. A lot of it depends on how your team members like to work and how many people (overall including producers) you have to manage your project. I wonder if there is an algorithm out there to compute that?

Justin D'Onofrio: I prefer a structure where everyone has input, so I like to keep things flatter. For example, as our lead programmer works out some additions to the engine, he needs to call on our 3D modeler to sort out details. This casual knowledge sharing is great to have, and something that I feel isn't as available when you have a more segregated, "pod"-like structure.

Robbie Edwards: I think both have merit and we have used both structures in our projects. We have made the move to the "pod-based" structure in an attempt to streamline communications.

With team sizes growing into the 100-200 person range, it is nearly impossible for one lead to manage 70+ people. The pods allow us to have our leads focus on working with about 10 coordinators and those coordinators managing three to eight people each. I think this structure helps developers stay focused on their responsibilities and provides some level of consistency in the quality of work.