One of the most challenging aspects of being a producer is working with different people. You will be working with your team through the whole project and getting to know its members personally will help you manage the team efficiently. Different people want to be leaders in different ways, and you'll have to adapt your management style to fit your team. One way to visualize different types of people is with a color wheel.
Click on the hotspots to learn about different people types.
The first step in motivating and managing people is to understand that everyone is different and thus has different things that motivate them. Some might enjoy the challenge of learning new things while others get motivated when they have the chance to collaborate with their peers. Getting to know you team also helps you anticipate problems that might arise.
Your goal is to create a positive, thriving work environment where everyone can be the best version of themselves. To achieve this, you must keep the motivation up, resolve conflicts, and encourage communication between the team members.
Every decision the producer makes should aim towards one goal: helping the team make the best game they can. Many of these tasks seem mundane and unrelated to development, but it is important that someone is actively handling them. When there is someone there for the team and doing these tasks, the rest of the team does not need to worry. As a producer, you must be the person the team can trust to keep everything together.
You will face problems as a producer, but it's your job to be ready for any kind of challenge. What would you do in the following situations?
Click on the flashcards to learn about problem solving.
There are many types of meetings you can utilize when managing a team. Find out what meetings work for your team and how often they should be conducted.
Daily Stand-Up
These are short meetings that last a maximum of 15 minutes and work well at the start of each day. In dailies, every member tells three things; what they did yesterday, what they’ll do today, and what kinds of problems they are facing, if any.
One-on-One
These are meetings that you can have privately with one of your team members at a time. Here you’ll go through more personal matters; does your teammate enjoy their work? Where do they see the project going? Do they have any concerns? What do they want to achieve? In one-on-one, they can express worries they might not feel comfortable talking about in front of the whole team.
Retrospectives
Retrospectives are meetings that you can hold after something has happened and look back at what you’ve accomplished. They can be held at the end of sprints or milestones (when you’ve got your first playable ready, for example). The purpose of retrospectives is to look back at how things were done, how the goals were met, and how to improve in the future.
Don’t hold meetings just for the sake of holding meetings. Instead, you should always know what you’re trying to accomplish with a meeting. Every meeting should have a clear goal, like a problem you’re trying to solve or prevent.
Match the meetings with their descriptions.
Answer the following questions about the producers’ responsibilities.
As you’ve noticed, the producer’s role is quite a flexible one. What about the actual game production and development, then? Let’s dig a bit deeper.