We invite your participation in the third annual IGDA Leadership Forum, focused on advancing the state of the art in game production and management. The conference is valuable for people in leadership positions in game development, and for individuals who want to develop their leadership skills. This includes producers at all levels, 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 second IGDA Leadership Forum was a smashing success with top rated sessions by Mark Cerny (Cerny Games), Michael Saladino (EA), David Edery (Microsoft), and Curtis Creamer (Bungie). In addition, we welcomed 330+ delegates from over 12 countries, including the UK, Sweden and Australia.
The 2009 IGDA Leadership Forum will continue the format of three tracks – Personal, Project, and Studio – that encompass a broad range of leadership topics. 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:
- developing leadership skills
- effective communication
- entrepreneurialism and taking initiative
- persuasion and making ideas stick
- handling challenging situations/conflict resolution
- problem-solving
- personal time management and “life hacking”
- career planning
Project Leadership sessions will focus on the nuts and bolts of game production, such as:
- development methodologies and best practices
- multi-platform development
- working with leads effectively
- risk assessment and analysis
- scheduling and scoping techniques
- pipeline optimization
- pre-production and prototyping
- post-mortems and case studies
- developing for handheld and MMO platforms
- certification process for Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
- outsourcing and remote development
Studio Leadership sessions will cover broader scale topics that go beyond a single team or project, such as:
- navigating the rough economy
- multi-team/site management
- team-building
- 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 use our online submission form to submit your proposal by the May 1st deadline. The Committee also welcomes suggestions for session topics and feedback on what would interest prospective attendees.
We appreciate your support for the 2009 IGDA Leadership Forum!
- Heather Chandler
Conference Chair, 2009 IGDA Leadership Forum
Chair, IGDA Production SIG
Executive Producer, Media Sunshine