Re: Any Techwhirlers in 3d games?

Subject: Re: Any Techwhirlers in 3d games?
From: "Dick Margulis " <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 14:17:15 -0500


Owen,

Clearly you've been given lemons and your challenge is to figure out how to make lemonade.

While I have never worked for a game company, anecdotal evidence suggests that most of them have a management structure that fits your description. When I've been faced with similar situations (in other contexts), the approach I've taken is to take control of my own life and my own job. Here's the basic sequence:

1. Decide what you _need_ to have control over (List A).
2. Decide what you _want_ to have control over (List B).
3. Take control over all the items in List A and as many of the items in List B as you have capacity for right now. (You can go back later to pick up the rest.)

In practice, this means that as of right now, thanks to my say-so, you no longer need anyone's permission to set your own work hours, schedule a meeting, send an email, grab a programmer by the ear and drag him to a scheduled meeting or barge in on him (game programmers are almost all guys, aren't they? Or am I wrong about that?) to get an answer if he's been ignoring your emails, design a template or a document, figure out what documents are needed and what has to be in them, figure out who has to review content for accuracy, get training in a programming language (so you can understand it well enough to write documents), or submit a department budget to the CFO.

You still do need someone else's permission to buy software, but a verbal OK from virtually anyone with a title of VP or above is sufficient, after which you can buy the stuff the company needs to own on your own credit card (you get the airline miles) and file an expense report for approval by the person who said OK. (Actually, this model applies to employees. As an independent contractor, you have to follow a slightly different procedure, I suppose; but you get the gist.)

In short, take the Nike approach. Just do it.

When you have some results, go to the company president and offer to take on a management reorg as your next contract assignment.

Dick

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Owen Flatau" <owenf -at- mighty -dot- co -dot- za>
Reply-To: "Owen Flatau" <owenf -at- mighty -dot- co -dot- za>
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 20:55:10 +0200

>
>hi everyone,
>
>i have recently taken a 6 month 'independent contractor'
>contract, in a 3d game dev company.
>

>
>more than this, they are sooo busy, and management is such
>a _shambles_

[snip]

>would anybody who has had similar experience, or has worked
>in a 'well-managed' games environment, care to advise
>off-list?
>


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