Building the Perfect Team

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Building the Perfect Team

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Building the Perfect Team. Michael Capps, Ph.D. President, Epic Games, Inc. Overview ... Punishment and firing is critical to maintaining team trust ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Building the Perfect Team


1
Building the Perfect Team
  • Michael Capps, Ph.D.
  • President, Epic Games, Inc.

2
Overview
  • Audience check
  • What gives me the right
  • Defining success
  • Hiring
  • Rewards
  • Saying Goodbye
  • Critical Positions

3
Epic Games
  • Founded 16 years ago by CEO Tim Sweeney
  • About 90 employees
  • Early success with Jill of the Jungle, Epic
    Pinball, then Unreal
  • Licensing Unreal Engine since 1996
  • 2006 shipped Gears of War, 4M units and many GOTY
    awards
  • This month shipped Unreal Tournament 3 and Gears
    of War for Windows

4
Leadership expert?
  • Not really
  • I lead because I hate inefficiency
  • Or that which I perceive as inefficiency
  • Or really, when its not done how Id do it
  • So I guess I lead because I simply hate following

5
Mikes fascinating story
  • Socialization and Education 1976 - 2000
  • Americas Army 2000 - 2002
  • Scion Studios 2002 2004
  • Epic Games 2004

until Im hit by a bus
6
Visualize Success
  • Whats our end goal?
  • Team dynamics and Culture
  • Really, we want
  • People to work harder than usual
  • People to work hard on the same thing
  • Not in scope
  • People to work hard on the right thing

7
Visualize Success
  • In other words, we want a team with
  • Unity of purpose
  • Willingness to sacrifice for that purpose
  • This doesnt mean sacrifice your family
  • Rather sacrifice enjoyable inefficiencies

8
Enjoyable Inefficiencies
  • Petty squabbling
  • intolerance for failure
  • Territorial behavior
  • Random web browsing
  • Random research projects
  • Tasks that look deceptively like progress but
    dont help to ship games
  • UT during lunch
  • Unless youre working on UT of course

9
Team case studies
  • Project Lowlife
  • get it running on almost anything
  • Americas Army
  • keep a secret and shock the world
  • Scion Studios
  • beat Epic at their own game

10
Team case studies
  • Epic Games
  • be the undisputed best in games and tech
  • Okay, so we think we did that. So now
  • Against the odds, stay on top!

11
Team case studies
  • Theres a trend in Capps brand cultures
  • MISSION (Almost) Impossible

12
Believing in leadership
  • Your team needs to be confident in you
  • You dont have to be perfect
  • you cant be
  • Earn their trust and theyll support your
    decisions

13
Believing in leadership
  • So if youre going to fuck up
  • Please do so with confidence
  • Panache even
  • You can blame any fuckups on this talk
  • Or, even more hip
  • Blame your engine middleware

14
HiringDisclaimer I am not an artist
15
but I can hire them!
16
Epics Hiring Process
  • Resume review by HR
  • Resume review by experts
  • Skills Test
  • HR phone call
  • Experts phone call(s)
  • Reference checking
  • On-site interview
  • Background investigation

17
A good resume
  • Bad spelling is a pass
  • Programmers who dont spell check probably dont
    test their code
  • Artists who dont spell check probably dont ask
    peers to review their work

18
A good portfolio
  • Should include only great work
  • if they send something weak, assume they don't
    know the difference
  • or they don't ask for advice from peers /
    mentors
  • Look for crediting, clean presentation, etc.

19
Demonstrate Passion
  • Good teams require passion
  • So we look for this first and foremost
  • What projects are they working on at home?
  • For junior hires
  • Look for game focused internships or
    extracurricular activities
  • Best tests are outside of the classroom
  • Hobby projects, mods, etc. are king

20
Skill test
  • Make them juggle
  • See how they take direction
  • No matter how perfect, we always send back for
    more
  • I dont take tests
  • Dont hire this guy
  • Hes probably too important to write input code
    or clean up LODs
  • Or any of the other stuff that ships games

21
The on-site interview
  • For artists not for skills, just team fit
  • For coders technical interview and team fit
  • What are we afraid of?
  • that they wont work hard
  • or that they will bail on us
  • or that they are a jerk
  • or that they secretly want to be a designer

22
Interview psychology
  • Look for people who
  • Are nice and friendly, pass the elevator test
  • Are respectful of your studios work
  • Show excitement about working there
  • Want to learn from your employees

23
Interview psychology
  • You want a studio full of people who feel lucky
    to be here
  • You MUST turn down brilliant people who dont fit
    your culture
  • Your lead coder will get mad at you for passing
    on a brilliant jerk programmer
  • Tell him its my fault

24
Hiring Strategy
  • This industry is startingly small
  • There are two degrees of separation between every
    game company in the world
  • So play nice with offer timing, other companies,
    etc.
  • You dont get lots of chances to screw up, so use
    them wisely

25
Environment is important
26
Environment
  • Read Peopleware
  • Physical environment
  • Environment foments collaboration
  • Or more frequently, prevents it
  • Manage interruptions
  • Interruptions are surprisingly costly

27
Environment
  • Team environment
  • Epic is game teams and engine team
  • Game teams
  • Producer
  • Lead designer
  • Level designers and lead
  • Gameplay coders and lead
  • Artists and lead

28
Rewarding Performance
  • Rewards are very dangerous
  • People will do what you reward them for
  • So much can go wrong
  • Infinite defect methodology
  • Doing that which is noticed
  • Working when its noticed
  • Reward based on performance reviews!

29
Reviewing Performance
  • Details of the epic process
  • Twice yearly
  • Leads and random peers
  • The Big Conversation
  • Epics review points
  • Quality and Attention to Detail
  • Creativity and Problem Solving
  • Communication and Teamwork
  • Work Ethic

30
Reviewing Your Performance
  • 360-degree feedback
  • Climate surveys
  • HR one-on-ones
  • Compliments, Concerns, Criticism meetings
  • Lots of informal discussions, lunches, etc!
  • Managing by walking around isnt just a cliché

31
Saying Goodbye
  • Employee reviews arent always positive
  • Punishment and firing is critical to maintaining
    team trust
  • Nothing demotivates like working next to someone
    who isnt working hard
  • Act carefully
  • Treat them like youd want to be treated
  • Employees need to be confident that you wont
    fire on a whim
  • Maybe theyre just on the wrong task?

32
Saying Goodbye
  • Epics process
  • Disclaimer rules on doing this legally are quite
    complex
  • Epics contracts are at-will
  • Having reviews is helpful
  • Initial informal discussion
  • Formal discussion with a performance plan

33
Saying Goodbye
  • Epic Performance Plan
  • Written statement they must sign
  • Producer, discipline lead, and HR
  • Immediate, significant, and ongoing improvement
  • Short lifetime for review, usually 2 weeks
  • If it goes poorly, terminate
  • Otherwise repeat, increase interval, finish

34
Saying Goodbye
  • I have roughly a 60 success rate
  • But Ive felt better 100 of the time
  • And I dont work next to the guy
  • Be open and honest about termination
  • Tell the team immediately
  • His team shouldnt be surprised!
  • Reassure team it was a long discussion

35
Critical positions
  • The Hit by a bus bus is coming
  • What do you do?

36
Critical positions
  • Find the most critical position
  • Figure how to make it (more) bus-proof
  • Repeat throughout the organization
  • Warning if anyone is actually hit by a bus on
    your team, you will be the logical suspect

37
Leadership and promotion
  • We usually have the luxury of time at Epic
  • So we test extensively under fire
  • Responsibility without authority
  • To lead this way, they must earn respect
  • Also makes promotions nice and smooth
  • Oh yeah? Its about time

38
Critical positions
  • You could be hit by a bus, too
  • Make yourself replaceable
  • Who are you grooming for your job?
  • You are be paid to create a sustainable
    organization
  • Not to keep yourself in a job for life

39
Critical positions
  • Not all employers appreciate this, sadly
  • You usually must prep a replacement before you
    can be promoted
  • And you should prep a replacement before you move
    out
  • So prep now before either opportunity knocks

40
There is no trick
  • Many necessary conditions for team gel
  • But no sufficient conditions
  • Make a lot of teams
  • Experiment with sub teams and ad hoc teams
  • Build a toolchest
  • Learn from others, its less painful
  • In the end, youre training your gut

41
There is no trick
  • Read everything
  • There is no perfect book for game production
  • Managing engineers is an art form with hundreds
    of books
  • Producers must manage artists at the same time
  • Steal from books Good to Great, Drucker,
    Peopleware, Slack, Flow, Wisdom of Teams, etc.

42
In conclusion
  • Success comes from motivated teams
  • Teams can come from good luck
  • But theyre more likely to come from diligent
    culture planning
  • Hire the right people
  • Reward them
  • Firmly remove wrong people
  • Watch your critical positions
  • And youll have the team you need

43
Questions?
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