The early bird deadline to register for the IGDA Leadership Forum is Friday, September 5th. Not only does registering early save you $50, it also ensures that you actually get a seat! FYI, last year’s Leadership Form sold out, and we expect the same this year.

Here’s a sampling of studios from those who are registered so far:

• 1st Playable Productions
• 2K Games
• 38 Studios
• Action Pants Inc
• Amaze Austin
• Amaze Entertainment
• ArenaNet
• Aspyr Media
• Babel
• Beenox
• Bethesda Softworks
• Big Huge Games
• Big Rooster
• Binary Culture
• BioWare Austin
• BioWare Corp.
• Black Rock Studio
• Blizzard Entertainment
• Blue Fang Games
• Bungie Studios
• Buzz Monkey Software
• Crystal Dynamics
• D2C Games
• Demiurge Studios
• DemonWare
• EA
• EA Black Box
• EDS, an HP company
• Emergent Game Technologies
• EmSense Corporation
• Epic Games
• Fizz Factor
• Foundation 9
• Fun In Motion, Inc.
• Gracenote
• Griptonite Games
• Heatwave Interactive.com
• Human Soft Inc
• Illusion Softworks, a.s.
• Image Metrics
• Intel
• ISOPOD LABS
• Joju Games
• Kidsland
• Language Automation, Inc.
• Lincoln BeasleyPR
• Locomotive Games
• Massive Entertainment
• Media Sunshine
• Microsoft Games Studios
• Midway Home Entertainment
• Midway Newcastle
• Mind Candy Ltd
• Ninja Theory
• Nokia
• Obsidian Entertainment
• OMNI Interactive Audio
• Pandemic Studios
• ProjectConnections.com
• Raven Software
• Red Rocket Games, Inc.
• Remedy
• Retro Studios
• Riot Games, Inc.
• Sandia National Laboratories
• SCEA
• SCEE - London Studio
• Schell Games LLC
• Slipgate Ironworks
• SomaTone Interactive Audio
• Starbreeze AB
• Stormfront Studios
• Stubborn Gorilla Games
• THQ
• Threewave Software
• Toys For Bob
• TwelveJ Learning
• Ubisoft Production France
• Vapor Entertainment
• Virtuos
• Wizards of the Coast
• Xbox Live Arcade
• Zipper Interactive

And, attendees are coming from as far and wide as Canada, Australia, China, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Sweden and the UK.

So, be sure to register by Friday, September 5th.

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The schedule grid for the Leadership Forum program is now live:

Day 1	Day 2

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The Leadership Forum is now open for registration! While the event is still a few months away, given the limited seating (around 500) we expect things to fill up fast. (Last year was sold out.)

Pricing is a very reasonable $350 for IGDA members (and $395 for non-members) until the early-bird deadline of September 5th. For those traveling, we have a block of reserved rooms you can book at the amazingly low price of only $119/night (plus applicable taxes/etc) at the conference hotel.

Check out the awesome line up of sessions/speakers for this year, as well as browse content from last year.

Hope to see you there!

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We are proud to announce our line-up of keynotes and track sessions. Here are the awesome sessions the Committee put together from the 100+ proposals. Enjoy!

Keynotes

• MVP Leadership - Curt Schilling, 38 Studios / Red Sox
• Production Methodology: Past, Present and Possible Futures - Mark Cerny, Cerny Games
• Studio Heads on the Hotseat - Jen MacLean, IGDA / Mike Capps, Epic Games / Brett Close, 38 Studios / Tobi Saulnier, 1st Playable Productions / Tim Train, Big Huge Games

Personal Leadership Track

The sessions in the Personal Leadership Track cover the personal skills we all need to be successful leaders.

• Truly Tapping Your Strengths - Scott Crabtree, Intel
• Being a Pioneer: Staying Passionate About the Future of Games - Don Daglow, Stormfront Studios
• Book Review Jam - Jason Della Rocca, IGDA
• MBA Lessons, Applied - David Edery, Xbox Live Arcade
• GGD: Getting Games Done - 10 Lifehacking Tips for Producers - Rodney Gibbs, Fizz Factor
• Workshop: Personality Analysis - Kathy Gibson, Threewave Software
• Leadership from the Trenches - Manveer Heir, Raven Software
• Leadership in Conflict: Navigating Through Choppy Waters - Kane Minkus, SomaTone Interactive Audio
• Workshop: Problem Solving and Root-Cause Analysis - Michael Saladino, Pandemic Studios

Project Leadership Track

The sessions in the Project Leadership Track will focus on the nuts and bolts of game production.

• Making Lots of Small Games Without Going Crazy - J.C. Connors, Griptonite Games
• Applying User Testing During Development - Curtis Creamer, Bungie Studios
• Project Management Idea Swap - Jason Della Rocca, IGDA
• Methodology Cases: PMI / Agile / CMM PSP - Heather M. Chandler, Media Sunshine / Karin Groepper Boosman, Aspyr Media / Rich Vogel, BioWare Austin / Tobi Saulnier, 1st Playable Producions
• Level of Detail for Project Planning - Mat Hart, Ninja Theory
• Myths of Scrum - Clinton Keith
• Pay Now, Save Later: Exploring Pre-Production and Prototyping - Trent Oster, Bioware Corp.
• Communicating Vision - Tom Smith, THQ
• Working with Licensed IP - Michael Waite, Amaze Entertainment

Management Leadership Track

The sessions in the Management Leadership Track cover broader scale topics that go beyond a single team or project.

• Reducing Turnover: Keeping Teams Intact Through Strong Leadership - Linda Bonanno, Emergent Game Technologies
• Studio Growth Cases - Tim Gerritsen, Big Rooster / Jason Coleman, Big Huge Games / Shaun Himmerick, Midway Newcastle / David Mann, Foundation 9
• Management Idea Swap - Jason Della Rocca, IGDA
• Civic Entrepreneurialism - Rodney Gibbs, Fizz Factor
• The Due Diligence Process Revealed - Michael Heilemann, D2C Games
• Organizational Development as a Game - Richard Hilleman, EA
• Let’s Reboot the Developer/Publisher Relationship - Mike McShaffry
• Managing an Engineering Community - Stefan Posthuma, EA Black Box

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FYI, the Sponsorship Opportunities page has been updated with the final packages and info for those companies interested in reaching the leaders in game development.

Big props to Autodesk, our returning Platinum sponsor, and Hansoft, which returns as the Silver sponsor.

This note is primarily intended for those trying to gain exposure and build goodwill within the dev community. Though, if you are a game developer that knows of a tool/software/service vendor that would benefit from reaching out to a room full of producers, dev leads, and studio directors, please point them over here.

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The IGDA’s Production SIG and Leadership Forum got props in Erin Hoffman’s Escapist article:

“The IGDA’s Production SIG has been making significant strides toward developing a knowledgebase of production methods, and last year’s related Leadership Forum was a tremendous success and a significant step forward in discussing better ways to make games from the top level down.”

The article, titled “Inside Job: It Takes a Method”, focused on the rise of formal production methodologies.

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Finally, the recorded content from the 2007 Leadership Forum is now available in two flavors:

DVD

All 21 conference sessions were recorded and are now available for purchase on DVD. The 4-disc set of hi-res video is priced at $99 (plus shipping). If you would like to purchase a copy, please email us via sales[at]igda.org and we’ll forward you the order form.

Web Videos

You can watch the lo-res videos hosted at Google Video via the following links:

Leadership Track:

• Building the Perfect Team
• Leadership Lab
• Death By 1000 Ideas: Managing Designers and Creatives
• Managing Engineers
• Managing Artists and Art Outsourcing for Next-Gen Games
• Communication Breakdown: How to Prevent This on Your Watch
• Caught in the Middle: Managing Staff, Teams and Executives
• How Not To Dine In Hell: Next-Gen Development Without Killing Your Team
• (Pending) Panel: Motivation & Team Morale

Production Track:

• How Not To Schedule A Project
• Agile Implementation
• Something from Nothing
• Working with Publishers as a Developer Producer
• Local Anesthetic: Painless Game Localization
• Cross Discipline Team Collaboration
• Leveraging Outsourcing to Enhance Development
• Dilemmas of the Publisher’s External Producer
• (Pending) Panel: Production Potpourri

Keynotes:

• Ultimate Objectives: Lessons Learned From Building BioWare
• (Pending) 10 Surprising Ideas for Leaders on the Future of Games
• Leading Creativity: Probing Tim’s Brain

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We invite your participation in the second annual IGDA Leadership Forum, focused on advancing the state of the art in game production and management. This event is valuable for producers, discipline leads, project managers, studio directors, and all others seeking to become better leaders, create successful games, and learn from other working professionals in the game industry.

The first IGDA Leadership Forum was a smashing success with top rated sessions by Don Daglow (Stormfront Studios), Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (BioWare), Tim Schafer (Double-Fine), Mike Capps (Epic Games) and Clinton Keith (ex High Moon Studios). And, we welcomed 300+ delegates from over 15 countries, including the UK, Finland, India and Australia.

The 2008 IGDA Leadership Forum is EXPANDING its session offerings so we can encompass a broad range of leadership topics, including personal leadership, project leadership and management leadership. The sessions will run in parallel tracks and will consist of a mix of lectures, panels, and interactive workshop sessions.

Personal Leadership sessions will cover the skills we all need to be successful leaders, such as:

• effective communication
• entrepreneurialism and taking initiative
• persuasion and making ideas stick
• personality analysis (Myers-Briggs, etc)
• handling challenging situations/conflict
• personal time management and “life hacking”
• career planning
• “personal MBA”

Project Leadership sessions will focus on the nuts and bolts of game production, such as:

• development methodologies and best practices
• risk assessment and analysis
• scheduling and scoping techniques
• pipeline optimization
• pre-production and prototyping
• post-mortems and case studies
• metrics
• outsourcing and remote development

Management Leadership sessions will cover broader scale topics that go beyond a single team or project, such as:

• multi-team/site management
• company culture and sharing a core vision
• motivation and morale
• hiring and retention strategies
• 3rd party relationship management
• studio lifecycle planning and scaling
• HR best practices
• quality of life
• workforce development/training

The Program Committee welcomes session proposals from qualified speakers for all three areas. Please send an informal email proposal, with the topic(s) and format(s) of interest and qualifications, to leadership-forum[at]igda.org by May 1st.

The Committee also welcomes suggestions for session topics and feedback on what would interest prospective attendees.

We appreciate your help in growing the IGDA Leadership Forum for 2008!

- Heather Chandler
Chair, Program Committee
Executive Producer, Media Sunshine

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Officially, there was no press at the Leadership Forum. In part, we wanted to ensure that developers had the best environment for open discussion, but also we just had very limited seating and wanted to conserve access to members. That said, Gamasutra (who work up the street in SF) did “sneak” in to get some coverage of several sessions.

• Gas Powered’s Swanson On Managing Next-Gen Artists
• Gamelab’s Herdlick On Managing A Happy Team
• Epic’s Mike Capps Talks Team Building
• Gerritsen Talks Managing Designers And Creatives
• Bill Dugan Talks Publisher-Developer Relationships
• Torpex’s Fristrom On How Not To Schedule A Game Project
• Tim Schafer Gets (More) Creative
• Don Daglow’s 10 Surprising Ideas On The Future Of Games
• Seven Studios’ Yeast Talks Next-Gen Development Process
• Crystal Dynamics’ Creative Road Trip
• BioWare’s Doctors On The Power Of Leadership

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Here are some quick snaps taken during the Leadership Forum. Apologies for the lack of quality - we really should have thought to hire a professional…

Day 1

 

Michel Kripalani (Autodesk) givens opening welcome as the Platinum Sponsor.

 

BioWare’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk deliver the opening keynote.

 

300+ attendees fill the main conference room.

 

John Farnsworth (Destineer) gives his leadership lab.

 

Tim Longo (Crystal Dynamics) on prototyping.

 

Roundtable discussions during the lunch break.

 

Attendees networking in the stylish lobby area.

 

Tony Van (Ubisoft) on communication.

 

Jamie Fristrom (Torpex) warns how not to schedule.

 

Catherine Herdlick (gameLab) on getting caught in the middle.

 

Chris Natsuume (Boomzap) on working with publishers.

 

Kenneth Yeast (Seven Studios) talks metrics.

 

Aaron Pulkka (Vivendi) covers the challenges of outsourcing.

 

Evening Dinner Reception

 

Bill Dugan (Torpex) munching with Greg Zeschuk (BioWare).

 

Yummy stirfry!

 

Attendees schmoozing.

 

Kumar Jacob (Twelve:J), ?, Alison Beasly (Lincoln Beasly PR), ?.

 

Don Daglow (Stormfront), Rodney Gibbs (Amaze), Karen Clark (GarageGames).

 

Chris Taylor (Gas Powered Games), Mark DeLoura (Satori).

 

Othon Cabrera (Broken Reality), Hector Padilla (Tecnológico de Monterrey), Poochi Ramasamy (Nextwave Multimedia)

 

Rocking out in EA Partners’ lounge.

 

Day 2

 

Don Daglow (Stormfront) delivers inspiring keynote.

 

Mike Swanson (Gas Powered Games) discusses art management.

 

Trent Oster (BioWare) on sucesses with agile/scrum.

 

Tim Gerritsen (Big Rooster) on managing creative folks.

 

Heather Chandler (Media Sunshine) covers game localizations issues.

 

Mike McShaffry on managing engineers.

 

Bill Dugan (Torpex) covers the challenges of working with publisher producers.

 

Mike Capps (EpicGames) shares insight on building a great team.

 

Clinton Keith (High Moon Studios) on cross disciplinary team collaboration.

 

Tim Schafer (Double Fine) interviewed by Mike Capps (EpicGames) in the event’s more casual closing session.

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