In the context of a hyper-competitive and volatile market, we cannot control all the parameters to lead the game to a success, but we can control the way we deal with repetitive failures until success. How do we better equip teams to build resilience for the tough journey ahead? That talk will provide an unconventional approach on building team's mindset for growth and performance on delivering high quality games.
I will share a framework on how to build antifragile teams to go through the hurdles of F2P game development towards success. That framework is meant to be applicable for any teams, from a big or small organization. To demonstrate my approach, I will use concrete example from the new game I developed at Rovio.
"How many of you have been on teams that have not succeeded" or "been on teams where people have left due to the team not performing" etc.
right now you are introducing Anti-fragility right off the bat without context about how it applies to games
or how it resonates with me personally
or at least it didn't feel right away that it was clear why you are talking about Anti-fragility. Ultimately it's a skill and mindset to help you gain value from failure
I think you have all the stuff ehre
Who is working on a new game here?
Who has a leadership role in that team?
Who has experienced failures in their teams where teams have fallen apart and dispersed to other projects?
Telling the story of a new game in developpement
That’s my team; happy to have soft launched the new game and celebrating
One could think that it was all planned out how we evolved and made it to SL, but the reality is more like that. It’s a pretty lonely journey with a lot of self doubts along the way: to kill, persevere or pivot. And you cannot see too far of where you go and drag along with you a group of people
So the unknwown of the game development led me to believe that we need antifragile teams for this journey!
Now you wonder what the heck I am talking about. Bear with me through the talk to open more your mind about that concept.
The first time I stumbled on that word was after reading that book which inspired me a lot to correlate with the work I was doing with teams and game development.
What is approached in the book is that there all the things in the world can be categorized in 3 properties: fragile, robust and antifragile. Example of what is in each
Robust: this is what most of the teams aim for, and this is good! (live ops teams)
But then, What’s an antifragile team? And why do we need one?
While it’s great to talk about antifragility concept and theory here, why do you care? Why should you care?
That cycle of starting over again and killing can be tedious in the extreme demand and competition of F2P development
As a reality, a lot of people give up and move on. Even quit the industry and I don’t blame them, it’s hard
The team breaks up, and we need to reform a team, recruit more people, it takes time and money
As leaders/managers how do we prevent that?
Adding a lot of failsafe, control, risk management… this is FRAGILITY, and at best ROBUST
Predictions
Foreseeing the future
More managers and reporting
More protection
I see it as helicopter parenting while there are the best intentions to help and protect from danger, it can have long term effect on the children and ability to approach life in the future.
The reality is there are so many unpredictable stressors that you cannot control/prevent what will happen. The worst and most difficult one is especially yourself: your own fears; doubts and emotions, and I had many....
No matter what we do and how hard we try to prevent a danger,storms will always happen eventually. They will always do.
And we make the team pissed by trying to hard to protect and control them .
The team breaks up and fall apart, and we need to reform a team, recruit more people, it takes time and money
Design director, almost ran out of money and had to expose the game earlier to make money to finance future development.
Let’s do a little exercise here and raise your hand if you have seen yourself in that situation?
Make revenues, and a happy team and players.
While I wish to give you the magic formula to be Antifragile, it is more a hard work than just a shift of mindset
I want to share my personal 3 key pillars of how I build a team and particularly antifragile team
Ikigai concept: Ikigai is a Japanese term for "a reason for being." The word ‘Ikigai’ usually refers to the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile.
Ikigai concept: Ikigai is a Japanese term for "a reason for being." The word ‘Ikigai’ usually refers to the source of value in one's life or the things that make one's life worthwhile.
Trust is the fundamental pillar to be able to have conflicts and we know many will happen during development. It’s inevitable, the question is more How to have better conflicts, rather than not have it.
And 1:1 discussions
My core values I present to any new team members and when recruiting
We live and act by it.
Ex on POP2
Give more ex on POP2
Give more ex on POP2
1 failure/challenge for 3 opportunities for growth
Staying in the game matters more than winning the game!
