LF07 Roundtables

To encourage knowledge sharing and peer connections, five roundtable style group discussions will be hosted on each day of the conference. These sessions will be optional, and are scheduled to run for 45-minutes during the second half of the lunch break, and will end before the first afternoon lecture starts.

Day 1 Roundtables (Thursday, November 8th)

The Role of Leadership in an Agile Environment

Clinton Keith – CTO, High Moon Studios

Many teams have adopted agile methodologies like Scrum to help them develop games. While agile is well suited to empowering each team member, a big question is how can leaders best lead in an agile environment. Are traditional top-down leadership styles are inherently at odds with Scrum’s approach of distributed and team-owned responsibility? This roundtable will discuss how we can best lead during an agile production.

Strike Team Structures for Large Teams

Mike McShaffry – Freelance Developer

This discussion will look at different ways to create multidisciplinary teams that maximize autonomy and minimize dependencies. Many companies are trying this and producers and team leads need to define the missions/roles internal to the teams and external to the project. Other problems include whether one person can join multiple strike teams, where the design visionary role fits in, and where the classic production staff and discipline leads contribute.

Art Tools: Workflow and Process

Michel Kripalani – Senior Industry Manager, Games, Autodesk

Where are we today and what is needed next on the art tools front? The roundtable will focus on all aspects of asset creation for games (specific tools, optimization, integration, overall pipeline, etc.). The conversation will focus on workflow and process rather than specific feature issues.

IGDA Production SIG “Futures”

Heather Chandler – Executive Producer, Media Sunshine

The IGDA’s Production Special Interest Group is the community hub for game producers and project manager types. The SIG works to share knowledge about the increasingly complex craft of game production. Come provide feedback on current and future SIG efforts, and discuss how you can get more involved.

Hiring Entry-Level Employees

Bryant Freitag – Senior Technical Manager, Big Huge Games

Hiring new people, especially entry-level, is a scary, time consuming, expensive operation. How do you ensure you are getting the best fit for your company? This session would poll and discuss how companies ensure top quality new-hires, and lessons learned through failed systems from the past. Examples from our own growing organization can show a progression from an ad-hoc system to a refined process that involves HR, production and programming without using much time per candidate.

Day 2 Roundtables (Friday, November 9th)

Problem Solving for Leadership

Michael Saladino – Development Director, EA

This discussion will cover different techniques for looking at complex problems such as system thinking and root-cause analysis. We will also discuss the issue of leaders solving too many problems and not allowing their team to take more responsibility. Why do so many leaders do this and how can we break this negative feedback loop? A real leader should instead specialize in building and maintaining creative tension within his team.

IGDA Leadership Forum “Futures”

Mike Capps – President, Epic Games

The inaugural Leadership Forum is not even finished and we’re already thinking of ways to make the follow-up even more successful! Come share your thoughts – good and bad – and your fresh ideas with the Forum Committee.

Production Methodologies in Practice

Chris Oltyan – Production Coordinator

Many studios are looking into adopting Scrum and Agile methodologies that sound great in theory, but in practice how do these methodologies pan out? Also, TSP/PSP, PMBOK/PRINCE2, Rational Rose/UML, and Waterfall are still in wide use outside our industry. What elements from these methodologies can be applied to game development?

Bootstrapping Your Own Game Studio

Ash Monif – CEO/Studio Development Director, IDI Entertainment

For all those starting up a new studio (or thinking about it) this is a chance to discuss and exchange information on why to start up your own studio (raison d’etre); Best practices on structuring your business and development teams; Following the money: What game markets have opportunity for growth and competition?; Business plan essentials; Approaching venture capital and investors; and general lessons learned.

Getting People to Listen

Marc Mencher – CEO, GameRecuiter

Influence isn’t about forcing people to listen to you or accept your ideas. It’s about finding the right combination of words, expressed the right way, to make people do something you want them to do – and either embrace your idea enthusiastically or think that it was their idea all long. This is not actually as sinister as it sounds. To be truly convincing, an influencer uses logic to win over others’ minds, emotion to win their hearts and at least a veneer of confidence to be regarded as authoritative. This roundtable explores various methods used to influence game development teams and leaders.



“The IGDA Leadership Forum has, without question, the highest quality of content of any game industry event I have ever attended. As far as “”bang for the buck”" it is the best conference for producers and managers in our industry. Any studio looking to upgrade its production and management techniques should make this a must attend event for their studio’s production and management leads. The annual IGDA Charitable Foundation dinner is also not to be missed.”

- Tom Buscaglia, The Game Attorney


“I’ve had the pleasure of attending the IGDA Leadership Forum for 2 years now. The conference is small and focused, which is its greatest strength. Not only does it offer an excellent schedule with high quality speakers, attendees have many opportunities to connect with other developers. This networking and sharing of ideas is what gives someone the additional tools, and perspective to be better at their job. The IGDA Leadership Forum has had a huge impact on my career. Every year, I’ve come away with new friends and mentors, and new inspiration that I can immediately apply to create positive impact within my company. For such a low cost with such high return, I ask you this: How can you not afford to send yourself and your employees to the IGDA Leadership Forum?”

- Kim Sellentin, Associate Producer, Blizzard Entertainment


“I’ve attended the Leadership forum every year since its inception. It’s my can’t miss conference each year for a couple of reasons… 1. It’s a very personal conference, small enough to get to know everyone and large enough to attract great speakers. 2. The game industry tends to build leaders from with in, but being a great developer does not make a great leader. The Leadership Forum provides a wonderful opportunity to develop those traits and learn how others have gotten there. 3. Unlike some large events, this is a very focused conference. The topic is narrow enough to attract a lot of like minded people and broad enough to cross disciplines. I can’t recomend the Leadership Forum highly enoughto any producer, leader, or simply those in our industry seeking to be the best at their craft. ”

- Chuck Hoover, Studio Production Director, Schell Games


“If you’re a manager in the games industry, or you have managers reporting to you, you owe it to yourself to come out or send them to the IGDA Leadership Forum next year. Your competitors are out here trying to figure out how to get better at capturing the lightning and putting it in a package to ship out to customers. We desperately need better trained leaders in the industry, and this is a proven place where they can come and improve their skills. This year I found an insight in every talk to make me better at my job, and to help my reports become better at their jobs. I really don’t feel like I can afford *not* to go. Can you?”

- Brett Douville, Lead Systems Programmer, Bethesda Softworks
© 2011 International Game Developers Association

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