GDC 2019 - Art Leadership Roundtables

Greetings, everyone!  First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who attended the roundtable sessions this year.  For those who couldn't make it, we decided to try something a bit different this time.

This year, we had six (6!) roundtable sessions.  In response to feedback, I decided to moderate three roundtables each for both "Early Career" and "Veteran" to ensure that attendees had a reasonable expectation of what types of topics might be discussed in each session.

While survey feedback has not yet been received, in-person responses seemed to be largely positive.  However, this change to the roundtables did not come without a cost.  Past readers have come to expect a pretty robust write-up on these sessions.  Increasing the number of roundtables to six (6!) meant that I simply don't have the wherewithal to provide a lengthy write-up for each.

Thankfully, a small number of people offered to share their notes with me (and thus all of you), which I will post in the days to come.  For those who might be interested, here are the topics that were discussed this year:

Early Career - Day 1:

• Student Question - Working with peers who have English as a second language, resolving conflict while preserving trust, working towards clarity
• Mentorship - How to encourage others to become more independent, learning how to pull away with creating the sense of "abandonment"
• Switching Gears - how to manage the mental shift from one type of work to another type of work
• Growing your Team - small studio concerns about growing from very small (2) to a functional team (5)
• Path to a "Lead" role - expectations, skills, qualities

Early Career - Day 2:

• Generalist Artists to Specialists (3D) - growing your art skills
• Managing heated discussions / conflict - reframing questions, establishing goals, clear metrics for success
• Introversion for Artists and Leads - understanding and growing your energy levels, clarifying what the team needs, making time to prepare
• Conflict between Directors - hashing it out away from the team, avoiding office politics, strategies to achieve resolution
• Balancing Time between Communication and Content Creation - clarity of purpose, reducing iteration, shared objectives and timelines

Early Career - Day 3:

• Mentorship failure - "cutting the cord," communicating problems upward, finding different opportunities
• Impostor syndrome - managing anxiety, confidence through teaching
• Toxic Coworkers - communicating with management, separating work
• Team Building exercises - leadership training, art jams, game jams
• Coworkers Dating - perils to communication, clarifying expectations, establishing boundaries

Veteran - Day 1:

• Outsourcing - strategies, art tests, communication, delivery systems
• Unifying Team Cultures - multi-team challenges, aligning expectations, department social events
• Growing Directors - clarifying motivations, expectations, early leadership opportunities
• Retention / Promotion - Titling systems other than "lead" and "director," differentiating paths

Veteran - Day 2:

• Mentoring Leads - directors investing proper time, leadership struggles, leaning away from content creation
• Titling and Retention - developing different career paths, understanding employee goals, unique challenges
• Diversity / Inclusivity - developing studio strategies, recognizing blind spots, demonstrating respect while avoiding "unicorn treatment"

Veteran Day 3:

• Meetings - controlling your schedule, blocking out "desk time" to do work, respecting Focus
• Project Needs vs. Team Needs - unifying goals where possible, compromise solutions, recognizing shifts during the development cycle
• Obsessive working - avoiding burnout, effectiveness vs. hours
• Critique Culture - art nor artist, clarifying metrics of success, improving "safety"

Once again, you expect some more robust write-ups in the weeks to come.  These notes were collected from attendees and full credit will be given to each individual when I post.  If you attended the roundtables and would like to share your notes, please contact me.

Thanks for reading!