We have no Production MasterClasses scheduled at the moment please contact ali@tandemevents.co.uk if you’re interested in future Production Classes.
Here are details of our most recent Class:
People & Process: How to Improve the Production Chain of Your Next Game
Class Leader: Sylvain Liege, Co-founder, Liemur
In today’s studios, where projects are so heavily dependant on the quality of the team, it’s vital to have a structured approach to ensure you can deliver on time and on budget.
This Masterclass offers an easy to implement, 5 layered structured approach to improving the efficiency of your production chain.
From basic one-on-one to cross-cultural team communication, this class will examine some of the issues to consider when human beings collaborate on any project. Coupled with a detailed exploration of the key components needed to efficiently manage a project from start to finish, this original framework bridges the gap between a totally technical and a fully soft approach to games projects.
Delegate Take Away
Delegates will be equipped with a set of high level tools with which to analyse their existing and previous projects. They will also gain new insight into what happens during a project and be able to offer new explanations and therefore solutions to most issues.
Audience
Game Producers
Project Managers
Team Leaders
Any developers involved in managing a project with a medium to large team
Class Programme
Morning: Human Dynamics at work
9.30 – 10.15 International project? Who am I dealing with? Or: What is culture?
Looking alike and sharing the same language do not guarantee a proper collaboration! This section introduces the concept of culture (in the sense of country culture). We will study the different dimensions of culture and the consequences it has on people’s behaviour. By the end of this section, the delegates will understand what makes people from different countries different, beyond their language, look and easily perceived features.
10.15 – 10.30 Impact of cross-cultural communication on international projects and what to do about it
This section analyses the consequences of the differences between cultures on projects. We will study the possible impacts on international teams. We will in particular identify how, rather than let these differences kill a project, we can use them to leverage their complementary aspects. By the end of this section, the delegates will have a strategy for approaching the difficulties that international projects can bring.
10.30 – 11.00 Personalities: why are other people so hard to deal with?
Team work implies collaborating more or less closely with team mates. This collaboration often creates friction based on differences in attitude. We will introduce here some aspects of psychological personalities, the possible consequences on collaboration and how to use these differences for the best rather than sticking with permanent frustration and misunderstandings. By the end of this section, the delegates will be equipped with practical notions of personalities and how to deal with them.
11.00 – 11.30 Coffee Break
11.30 – 12.00 Change: a love/hate relationship
This section introduces the ambiguous relationship we have with change. We will present the underlying reasons for resisting change so that we can identify when we resist it, and work on how we handle forthcoming coming change for the best.
12.00 – 12.30 Human Communication: a constant unknown challenge
Our ability to communicate with others is taken for granted. In this session we will study the real complexity of the communication process and by doing so identify the possible bottlenecks one encounters in good communication on a daily basis. We will discuss the purpose and ways of performing good communication inside a project team. By the end of this section, the delegates will have a view on how to identify possible reasons for bad communication they are subject to and also how to plan a good quality communication to others. This will be valid for any form of communication.
12.30 – 13.00 Review of the morning session
13.00 – 14.00 Lunch
Afternoon: Process with a Human Dynamics point of view
14.00 – 14.30 The case for using a process, preferably agile
A software project is made of a huge list of complex tasks. This section will recap these tasks and the consequences it has on organising the work inside the team if we want to have a chance to succeed. We will take the angle of human acceptance to process and discuss the consequences of the process of choice on the project. By the end of this section, the delegates will have a clear picture of the dynamics happening inside a software project and the impact on it of the process of choice.
14.30 – 15.15 Requirements: the corner stone of a project is relying on the weakest of communication channel, i.e. natural language writing
Most software projects, including games, are based on written requirements. These requirements are the cornerstone of any project. We will present thoroughly the reasons why this choice, if alone, is almost doomed from the very start. Communication in writing cannot and will not convey all the needed information from one team member to the other. We will study how ambiguities get into the equation, especially in games and what we can do about it without stifling creativity. The delegates will learn the limits of writing and the possible actions to take to compensate this common weakness.
15.15 – 15.30 Crunch time: What about a quick fix? No thanks
This section will introduce briefly the reasons why quick fixes almost never fix the real problem. We will introduce some techniques as possible ways to avoid this pitfall.
15.30 – 16.00 Coffee Break
16.00 – 17.30 Improving the production chain of a project: a 5 layered structured approach
During the course of the day, we will have explored all the human dynamics ingredients that make or kill a great project. This section will wrap them all in a framework that puts them in perspective with each other. By the end, the delegates will be equipped with a thought model that will allow them to read differently and therefore act differently on a project. They will be able to identify sources of misunderstandings, conflicts and errors that are usually hidden to us e.g. cultural difference, personality difference, communication patterns, resistance to change, etc.; all in the context of a video game project. They will understand better their own behaviour and will also be able to act upon it faster and for the best of the project. Ultimately, the effect of applying the topics covered during the day is a better production chain, as people collaborate better, faster and more accurately with less misunderstandings and conflicts.
17.30 Drinks
Your Class Leader is Sylvain Liége:
Sylvain is a Director, co-founder and principle consultant at Liemur. He has a PhD in Computer Science from Nantes University and is President of the Board of Trustees for IS2T in France (who specialise in embedded technologies). Sylvain is an expert on the “human dynamics” that exist within software development projects, and played a pivotal role in the creation of the Project Cycle OptimisationTM model. He has consulted across business sectors such as energy, finance and software vendors and for the past year has been concentrating on the “human dynamics” that exist between computer games studios and publishers in the UK.
