“1. Great game development teams have a clear, shared vision of the game design and the development plan and an infectious enthusiasm for that vision”
“2. Great game development teams carefully manage the risks to the design vision and the development plan”
“3. Members of great game development teams buy into the decisions that are made”
“4. Great game development teams avoid crunch”
“5. Great gamedev teams build an environment where it’s safe to take a risk and stick your neck out to say what needs to be said”
“6. Great gamedev teams do everything they can to minimize turnover [1] and avoid changing the team composition [2] except for growing it when needed. This includes avoiding disruptive re-organizations as much as possible”
“7. Great gamedev teams resolve interpersonal conflicts swiftly and professionally”
“8. Great gamedev teams have a clearly-defined mission statement and/or set of values, which they genuinely buy into and believe in”
“9. Great gamedev teams keep the feedback loop going strong”
“As part of this, they also practice “no-surprises management” [2]. Give IMMEDIATE feedback and ensure that team members always know how well they are doing.”
“10. Great gamedev teams celebrate novel ideas, even if they don’t achieve their intended result”
“11. Great gamedev teams hold each other to high standards for their particular discipline (art, design, engineering, etc)”
“12. Great gamedev teams build an environment of mutual respect”
“13. Great gamedev teams deal with personnel / HR issues on the team swiftly, professionally, and appropriately”
“14. On great gamedev teams, everyone on the team is committed to making a great game”
“15. Great gamedev teams empower team members by ensuring that their opinions count”
“16. Great gamedev teams estimate task durations as accurately as possible”
“17. Great gamedev teams strive to minimize internal politics and foster an environment where political shenanigans are not acceptable”
“18. Great gamedev teams discuss failures openly”
“19. Great gamedev teams don’t let any team members put their own priorities above the collective goals of the game project”
“20. Great gamedev teams value and utilize the unique skills and talents of all team members”
“21. Great gamedev teams enlist all studio stakeholders in decisions to make significant changes to the core game design or architecture”
“22. Great gamedev teams offer ample praise”
“23. Great gamedev teams keep an open-door policy”
“24. Great gamedev teams ensure that all team members understand clearly what is expected of them”
“25. Great gamedev teams make the organizational structure and membership of the team clear from the outset and carefully communicate any changes to that structure”
“26. Great gamedev teams ensure that all team members are well-trained in the studio’s production methodology”
“27. Great gamedev teams don’t let important things go unsaid”
“28. Great gamedev teams give team members opportunities to learn, grow, and improve their skill set”
“29. Great gamedev teams ensure that their team’s tools (both software and hardware) work well and allow them to be productive”
“30. Great gamedev teams give team members the authority to determine their own tasks on a day-to-day basis”
“They also ensure that the person responsible for performing a task is involved in determining how much time is allocated to it”
“31. Great gamedev teams carefully manage technology changes in development”
“32. Great game development teams involve the entire team in prioritizing the work to be done for each milestone or sprint”
“33. Great gamedev teams meet regularly to discuss topics of interest, ask questions, and identify production bottlenecks”
“34. Great gamedev teams hold team members accountable for meeting their deadlines”
“At the same time, they DON’T treat deadlines as matters of life and death, and they don’t crucify team members for missing a deadline.”
“35. Great gamedev teams foster an environment of helpfulness”
“They reward team members for asking for help and offering support to others. A “sink or swim” environment will guarantee that everyone sinks in the long run.”
“36. It’s a good idea to have some specs or design documents that describe the vision for the game at the outset”
“37. Great gamedev teams genuinely care about one another as human beings”
“38. Great gamedev teams use individually-tailored financial incentives”
“39. Great gamedev teams – especially large ones – conduct code reviews, pair programming, or peer-reviewed code checkins”
“40. Great gamedev teams recognize that even the best-laid plans sometimes require adjustment.”
“Experience also matters enormously, but you probably already knew that. What you may not have known is that it’s about as important as #36 on this list – the first 35 factors we listed all showed a stronger correlation with project outcomes than a team’s average level of experience.”