All of the session slides have been converted to PDF and zipped up for your downloading pleasure.

Leadership Track:

• Building the Perfect Team – Mike Capps, Epic Games
• Leadership Lab – John Farnsworth, Destineer
• Death By 1000 Ideas: Managing Designers and Creatives – Tim Gerritsen, Big Rooster
• Managing Engineers – Mike McShaffry
• Managing Artists and Art Outsourcing for Next-Gen Games – Mike Swanson, Gas Powered Games
• Communication Breakdown: How to Prevent This on Your Watch – Tony Van, Ubisoft
• Caught in the Middle: Managing Staff, Teams and Executives – Catherine Herdlick, gameLab
• How Not To Dine In Hell: Next-Gen Development Without Killing Your Team – Kenneth Yeast, Seven Studios

Production Track:

• How Not To Schedule A Project – Jamie Fristrom, Torpex Games
• Agile Implementation – Trent Oster, BioWare Corp.
• Something from Nothing – Tim Longo, Crystal Dynamics
• Working with Publishers as a Developer Producer – Chris Natsuume, Boomzap
• Local Anesthetic: Painless Game Localization – Heather Maxwell Chandler, Media Sunshine
• Cross Discipline Team Collaboration – Clinton Keith, High Moon Studios
• Leveraging Outsourcing to Enhance Development – Aaron Pulkka, Vivendi Games
• Dilemmas of the Publisher’s External Producer – Bill Dugan, Torpex Games

Keynotes:

• Ultimate Objectives: Lessons Learned From Building BioWare – Ray Muzyka – CEO, BioWare Corp., Corporate VP and Director, BioWare/Pandemic and Greg Zeschuk – President, BioWare Corp., Corporate VP and Director, BioWare/Pandemic
• 10 Surprising Ideas for Leaders on the Future of Games – Don Daglow – President and CEO, Stormfront Studios

This session was from the mind of Tim Gerritsen, Founder of Big Rooster.

Tim started by saying his lecture had “a rather pretentious and silly title” – befitting a designer. He threw us all into bewilderment asking us to stand up, raise our hands, clap, and hop. I admit I didn’t really hop! But the audience pretty much complied, laughing a bit. Tim asked us why we did this so willingly. He told us “Because it was simple, we were all capable, and the instructions were clear.”

Ah ha – a short eureka moment – this is exactly what and how a manger should communicate to his team.

Here are a few choice quotes from Tim in his introduction:

1. “All humans are creative – we crave direction and focus.”

2. “If I told you how to vote or what car to drive – we’d have an argument.”

3. “Creative people like to impact the world around them.”

4. “Good leadership works whether you lead creative or noncreative people.”

5. “All management comes down to communication.”

He then went on to ask us how many of us have slept under our desks – and about 1/3 of the people raised their hands – he laughingly asked where the rest of the audience worked!

Remember that hilarious Terry Tate video, “The Office Linebacker?” He showed that to us and said “Nobody runs their company that way but geez I wish I had Terry Tate sometimes!” Me too, Tim, me too.

Tim introduced us to the “trust -> focus -> clarity” cycle, and said that “You earn trust by giving trust.” He went on to say that you should hire people smarter than you are, tell them what you want, then “get the hell out of their way.”

Here are a few good quotes from Tim about trust:

1. “Creativity is boosted by limitation. It is far easier to make something when you know what the limits are.”

2. “You define the box (the limitations) – let your employees define what is in the box.”

3. “Get to know your team – what are their strengths and weaknesses. Play to their strengths, and use your team to compensate for their weaknesses. “

Tim then took a short sideline to discuss some stuff he’s reading – he guesses that this is the kind of thing he’s supposed to do in a lecture like this! That makes me feel a little conscious about my lecture in the next hour – and it even turned out I got a question about what I’m reading! I guess Tim was right!

Here’s what Tim has read and suggests to us:

1. Made to Stick – good ideas about how to pitch ideas.

2. Built to Last – a standard, or even bible about how to build companies.

He went on to talk about trust as it relates to creating systems and processes that will help your company even survive without you – and while this seems like a career imploding idea it is really the right thing to do. I look at it another way – if you create systems and processes that you, the head of the company, don’t have to do anymore, you can do other more important stuff!

Tim also suggests reading Illusions by Richard Bach. Yes, this is the same author that wrote Jonathan Livingston Seagull – wow that’s a blast from the past. Jonathan Livingston Seagull! Seriously, it is a good book about self-empowerment.

Tim moved on to talk about focus.

He said the four most dangerous words in game development are “Why Can’t We Just…”- everyone is a designer. He went on to show us a television remote – one of the simple ones, then the Logitech 880 with 1000 buttons, and used that as a metaphor for overdesigning something. Tim said, “I want that phone for old people – the one with the big buttons.”

Tim said the same thing happens in game design – and publishers are guilty of adding things into the mix when they really aren’t benefiting the design. They don’t want Tetris, Tim said, they want it with HDR lighting, multiplayer online, and spinning blocks in three dimensions. Then it isn’t Tetris anymore and it isn’t fun either.

Another example Tim cited was analog buttons on next-gen controllers. The console manufacturers would ask developers to make use of the analog buttons, and Tim reacted, “Have you actually TRIED it???? There’s a gerbil in Germany that understands that difference (in pressing and half-pressing buttons)”.

Tim observes that focus creates vision, and shared team vision results in much higher productivity and job satisfaction. “We all like to know what the hell we’re doing.”

Something that helps focus priorities is knowledge of the business side of our industry. “We want everyone to be entrepreneurs – we’re not making fine art – we’re making commercial art. Everyone should know the company burn rate – get your team to understand cost impact (of changes and new features).” Tim showed an example of putting in a new weapon in their FPS – ½ month each for modeler, texture artist, animator, programmer, and 2 months to balance it. @ 10,000 mm this will cost $40,000 !

Other reading materials from Tim’s library:

1. Ogilvy on Advertising

2. The Foot Book – Dr. Seuss. Kid’s books are focused! Consise….avoid the licensed crap – kind of like video games. LOL.

Tim also talked about clarity.

“Be honest and direct (to your team). If their work sucks, they probably already know it! You are not squishing their soul. You are not killing them – tell them how they can improve. “

“Confront! Do it! The first time is the hardest.”

Tim observed that we all screw up – that’s how we learn. Always praise in public, criticize in private. And you should guard against becoming the harbinger of DOOM, always criticizing and never praising. You can’t have favorites – it’s like raising kids. Spread the love.

Other random musings:

1. Don’t hire just because you need butts in seats – hire the right person – even if you have to wait.

2. Don’t be afraid to fire. An ongoing failture can bring the entire team down.

More reading material:

1. Mythical Man Month

2. Toilet Graffittti

3. The Exit Sign (no really – it was just an exit sign)

And finally – regarding a subject clearly near and dear to Tim’s heart, Quality of Life:

1. It is a leadership issue

2. “18 hrs / day for 6 months SUCKS.” We don’t have to be the industry that kills everybody”

3. “You need to stop and refuel their soul.”

4. “This is a hard hard industry on marriages. My wife is a SAINT.” (To Tim’s wife – he really said that – cool huh!)

5. “Is there really a good reason why we need our teams working on weekends.”

6. “Send your people home if they can’t see the problem themselves. Go HOME – you have a LIFE.”

7. “It is not a badge of honor to be living here.”

8. “Productivity goes UP when you fuel your soul.”

This is near and dear to my heart, too. And I’m really glad Tim takes such as hard line on it.

“Let’s schedule realistically or not schedule at all. If we were forced to pay overtime, we’d figure this shit out in a hurry.”

My favorite question that followed Tim’s session was, “How do you convince higher ups that we shouldn’t work weekends?” Tim’s answer – “Vote with your feet.”

Way to go, Tim.

Thanks to all the great proposals and the hard work of the program committee, the following awesome line up of industry speakers have been confirmed for the IGDA Leadership Forum this fall:

• Mike Capps – President, Epic Games
• Heather Maxwell Chandler – Executive Producer, Media Sunshine
• Don Daglow – President and CEO, Stormfront Studios
• Jason Della Rocca – Executive Director, IGDA
• Shekhar Dhupelia – Development Director/Producer, Midway
• John Farnsworth – Studio Director, Destineer
• Jamie Fristrom – Technical Director, Torpex Games
• Tim Gerritsen – Executive Director, Big Rooster
• Michael Heilemann – Technical Director, Stormfront Studios
• Catherine Herdlick – Director of Game Production, gameLab
• Tim Longo – Creative Director/Senior Designer, Crystal Dynamics
• Mike McShaffry – freelance developer
• Ray Muzyka – CEO, BioWare Corp., Corporate VP and Director, BioWare/Pandemic
• Chris Natsuume – Creative Director, Boomzap
• Trent Oster – Project Director, BioWare Corp.
• Aaron Pulkka – Senior Director, Outsourcing, Vivendi Games
• Mike Swanson – Studio Art Production Manager, Gas Powered Games
• Tony Van – Executive Producer, Ubisoft
• Greg Zeschuk – President, BioWare Corp., Corporate VP and Director, BioWare/Pandemic

There are still a few folks we’re waiting on for confirmations, but this will serve as the bulk of our faculty for the Leadership Forum.

More details to come in the near future regarding their actual topics and session descriptions, along with a preliminary schedule.