Dropping the Mask - Neuro Inclusion for Wellbeing Productivity and Staff Retention

Hi everyone, thanks for sticking around. Um, welcome to dropping the mask. Neuroincclusion for well-being, productivity, and staff retention. Just a reminder, please turn off your phones. You'll receive an email during the session asking you to rate it. These ratings are really important to us as speakers and the conference itself. We need feedback from attendees to continue improving content and making the conference better. Uh I'm Cindy Archer. Um I deal with all the nuts and bolts of keeping facilities running, coffee flowing, and events happening at Lab 42 games in Lamington. Um I'm their neurodiversity champion and one of our mental health first aiders. And I believe that everyone's mental health should be supported in the workplace. And this means we all have a responsibility to understand

neurodeiversity and the effect it would have on our neurode divergent colleagues.
And I'm uh Terry Gooden. I'm the studio director of Lab 42 Games. Um I was employee number three at what became Lab 42. And I've been fortunate enough to see the studio grow over the last nine years. And um as we grew and we started to um have a lot of very different people join us with very different needs. we started to spend more time looking for ways to help those people um feel supported and we'll be talking today about what we've learned. Just a super quick overview of lab 42. We're in the sumo digital family of studios. We primarily do work via projects with an overall development team of 60 plus people with anywhere from three to seven projects at any one time. So we have very small projects of two to three people up to bigger teams of 20 plus. So a lot of variety in project types and team configurations which has an impact on the sort of things that we're talking about today. So our aim here with this talk is to

take you through our experiences of the current landscape around neurodyiverse workers in the games industry. We'll be talking about what neurodiversity is. Um, how common it is in games, why and how businesses probably need to put some thought into supporting neurodyiverse people in their workforce and some ideas of specific actions you could take around that. Without considering these things, you're likely to see issues of low engagement and take a retention hit. And this is all kind of things designed to combat that. We're not perfect and we don't intend to make it sound like we think we are with this presentation. This is we're constantly looking for ways to improve. So this represents the things that we've been looking at.
Um okay little neurodiversity primer. Um neurodiversity is not the conditions itself. Neurodiversity is what all of us all of our minds are together. So um not just neurotypical people, not neurodyiver not just neurode divergent people. And it's as important as biodiversity for human

survival because different minds look at problems in different ways and come up with different solutions. Um it's about differences not deficits. Um dropping the D's from things like ADHD is there's sort of a movement moving towards that. So it's not deficits it's differences. um neurological differences such as autism or autistic spectrum disorder, ADHD, dyslexia, and others are they're all natural variations of the human brain, but they're a neuro minority. Um recognizing neurodiversity emphasizes that these different should be respected and valued in the same way as any other kind of diversity. Neurode divergence in and of itself is not considered a medical or mental health diagnosis. Um again it's a natural variation in brain function that is not always disabling and may not require medical or therapeutic intervention. Um some however having a neurode divergent trait might create

challenges especially where there are social expectations. Um the differences can lead to or be associated with difficulties and mental health illnesses. And it can be argued that neurody diverent neurode divergent conditions in themselves are not disabilities and that neurode divergent people are disabled by political and social repressive social repression and barriers. And this is what causes the disability. This is a model, a social model of disability and it's a concept widely adopted by the neurodiversity movement. Um, some neurode divergent conditions do vary in levels of impairment and this means that some individuals will have significant lifelong support needs. Oh god, it's me again. Sorry. Um, in the gaming industry, neurode divergent employees represent a significant number of all employees across the gaming industry. Um, Yuki's most recent, um,

survey and consensus showed that about 18% of people in the gaming industry are neurody divergent. Um,
excuse me, I'm so sorry. I'm an interpreter. You're reading, aren't you? And you're reading a little bit too quickly.
Okay, sure. No problem. That was really
just do it.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much. We all breathe together,
right? 18% um
ADHD.
It is. It really is. It kind of is. Um and we have found in our own studio, we have a small studio. Um we did a survey when we were about at 74. um just sort of casual survey around um our studio and who is definitely identifies as neurode divergent and also who thinks they might be but haven't felt comfortable enough to explore that and

we came up to about 42% oddly
that 42 so there's a lot of people in this industry um who are neurode divergent it's uh just the nature of the work and we need to look out for those people. Um, there's been there's been a lot of stuff going on in the industry and it's making strides to support these employees. I know that Ubisoft has a really good employee um resource group. I saw a thing with them in
GDC.
Yes, GDC. Really great talk. Um, Oroch Digital, one of our Sumo family, they've implemented an extensive plan to foster neuroincclusion and these efforts help ensure that neurody divergent employees can thrive and contribute meaningfully to their teams and projects. So, uh, spiky profiles. So although everyone has variation in skills and

abilities, having a spiky profile means this variation can be more pronounced for neurodyiverse people who who have strengths in many areas but struggle with others. So um when plotted on a graph, their skills, strengths and weaknesses end up looking like a mountain rage with high peaks and low valleys. So, exceptional strength or talent alongside areas of relative weakness um or difficulty
and the variety of skill performance in spoky spiky profiles will look different for different individuals in different situations. Um it's important that work environments foster inclusivity and offer flexibility for a range of working styles, skills, and abilities that constitute spiky profile. And it can vary in terms of what areas are identified and examined. Um, often including analytical skills and that's how we solve problems by absorbing and analyzing information. Perceptual abilities, how we interpret and give meaning to what is happening around us.

Uh, processing speed, how quickly we process and recall information from long-term memory. Mathematical skills, how we interpret and make sense of numbers and time. Motor skills, how we coordinate our body movements to complete tasks. Relationships, how we develop and maintain social relationships. Sensory activities, our awareness, processing sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch. Situational skills, how we interpret and interact in different situations. Visual perception, how we interpret our visual environment and surroundings. and working memory, our short-term memory that assists us with decision making.
Uh each profile is unique. The idea is it's unique and specific to an individual. Um so if we look at an example of someone with dyslexia, um people with that condition struggle to read because their brain doesn't process um written language like the brain of someone without dyslexia. Um, however,

people with dyslexia often have brains that are better at processing or mentally picturing 3D objects. So, that makes them much faster at identifying optical illusions. And they have a natural talent for jobs like graphic design, engineering, and the arts. Um, so to take that further and look at some some other examples, someone with ADHD may have exceptional creative talents and problem solving skills, but struggle with time management and organization. A person on the autism spectrum may have exceptional attention to detail and strong analytical abilities. They may excel in maths and working memory, but may struggle with social interactions and communication or sensory overload or appear clumsy. But another person on the autism spectrum, could have below average math skills but exceptional motor skills and deal differently with stressful environments. Um, a person with sensory processing disorder may have heightened sensory perception and awareness but experience difficulties in

sensory modulation and integration. And someone with Tourette's may have exceptional focus and concentration but struggle with involuntary movements or vocalizations. So understanding this concept of spiky profiles and understanding that there is no one-sizefits-all adaptation of support strategy is key to ensuring individuals are supported with dignity and compassion. Um so regardless of whether any individual has a formal diagnosis or not, using their skill profile to shape the support they receive can ensure that strategies are personalized and effective. So by focusing on their strengths and abilities while also addressing areas of difficulty, individuals can thrive in their personal and professional lives.
Um the trouble with masking. Um for those of you who don't know, neurode divergent masking is when a neurode divergent person will basically pretend to be a completely different person when in a work situation or social situations

um anywhere that they're not 100% comfortable. um suppressing natural way of thinking, behaving, interacting um to fit in with workplace or social expectations. Um it can involve mimicking neurotypical behavior um and suppressing stmming behavior. Stmming is um what we do to like a self soothing, self- stimulation um sort of fidget spinners or I have I always I don't know why I've got I usually have a ball of bluac
but I've left it. So the problem is um and overcompensate in social interactions um reasons for masking uh number one social acceptance um to be accepted by colleagues and to avoid bullying or discrimination. A lot of neurode divergent people have experienced this as young people at school. Um, so when I've sort of had this experience too, so you sort of learn to copy the people around you and behave like them to avoid

any of that kind of behavior. Uh, job security to meet performance expectations and maintain employment. Um, to avoid misunderstanding. Um, to prevent misinterpretation of their behavior as unprofessional or disruptive. This happens to me um, all the time in meetings. I have something I can only describe as moving beef face, not resting B face. So people do find my facial expressions a little bit daunting sometimes and that could be quite a misunderstanding. Um and identity erosion um a diminished sense of self. When you're always pretending to be someone else, you can't feel authentic and if you don't feel authentic, this does take toll on your mental health. Um the benefits of reducing masking, enhanced well-being, improved mental health and job satisfaction, um increase productivity. When you're feeling good, you work better and um productivity productivity can increase. Uh diverse perspectives, leveraging those unique

strengths and perspectives um can lead to innovative solutions and creative problem solving. Uh yeah, the B- word bullying. This this still happens. I mean, this happens. I think a lot of people do try and and spot it and stop it. Um, unfortunately, that's just sort of the nature of of the human nature. Um, some of this stuff, just keep an eye out for microaggressions, um, and certain forms of bullying, exclusion and isolation, um, being left out of meetings or projects or social activities. Um, just because somebody is always going to say no doesn't mean that you stop inviting them or unless you have a discussion with them. Um, does it make you feel uncomfortable when we invite you? We just don't want you to feel left out. So, you have to look at people in a personal s. I mean, we have a few people that will never never come to our Christmas gathering or anything like that, but we we still invite them.
Yeah. Unless they say, "Don't invite."

Unless they say, "Don't invite me. Stop sending me stuff." Uh, micromanagement, excessive monitoring. So because somebody may be working in a different way and they have different um a different process from what so it's like you get from point A to point B in a certain amount of time. Um some neurody divergent people will not be following that same route that you've like a very strict process has been laid down for them but they'll get to be in that time doing their own thing. Um, I found from personal experience being micromanaged and being told to do something in a completely different process means that I go home and do it in my way at home later that night. But whatever disparaging comments, um, it's not banter if there's no consent. I know that we have sort of very bantery kind of jokey sort of um, culture, but if there's no consent, it's not banter. It's not fun. um and just sort of picking up on people's foibless and

teasing them about it. For some people that is very very hurtful. Um obstructing oh spreading rumors and gossip uh sharing untrue exaggerated stories about performance or behaviors. You know we hopefully don't see much of that. um obstructing career progression like denying promotions because you don't think someone is taking that ladder the same like in a traditional way doesn't mean they're not worthy of progression. Undermining, sabotaging work, taking credit for ideas, physical bullying still happens and invasion of privacy. So that's all just standard bullying stuff that it doesn't matter if you're neurody divergent or not should not be happening in any workplace. Um so this is where we get into interesting statistics. Um neurode divergent individuals may experience burnout more frequently in the workplace um due to a mismatch between their unique needs and the demands of their environment. So this can lead to challenges in retaining neurode

divergent employees um and can have negative effects on their well-being, productivity and job satisfaction. Um uh a key factor that can contribute to contribute to neurode divergent burnout is sensory overload. So many neurode divergent individuals have heightened sensory sensitivity uh which can make the typical workplace environment overwhelming and exhausting. So we we see we've seen this a lot and it's we'll get into some kind of some solutions to these things later on but like flickering lights and loud noises like a lot of workplaces are not built in a way to I mean you can take care of flickering lights but loud noises that can be quite difficult strong smells like based on where things are in the building it's difficult to avoid other sensory stimuli um that can also be particularly distressing for some people everybody's different so additionally neurode divergent individuals may struggle with executive functioning skills like organization time management, task prioritization,

things that are quite seen as quite key. So it can make it difficult for them to keep up with the pace and expectations of the workplace. Um and that can lead to feelings of frustration and and inadequacy that that then leads to burnout. So there was a a um survey by Willis Towers Watson's Global Benefits Attitude Survey um found that 50% of neurodyiverse people reported feeling burnt out at work compared to just 38 people 38% of neurotypical employees. So only a quarter of neurodyiverent employees felt financially secure and emotionally balanced compared to a third um that felt like they had good physical health. So three in five neurody divergent employees had deferred health care um compared to 29% of other employees. So you see quite a strong trend that these sorts of issues would seem to be present to a greater degree in neurody divergent people. Um so a study by the national autistic society

found that 77% of neurode divergent individuals felt that their mental health had been affected by workrelate factors which is huge. Um and a survey by the Job Accommodation Network found that 46% of individuals with autism reported experiencing high levels of stress in the workplace. Nearly half of the people with autism um saying that they experience high levels of stress in the workplace is is quite alarming. So the the impacts of that decreased productivity, right? Obviously people feeling burnt out, they're strug going to struggle to maintain the high levels of productivity. So that will lead to slower work output uh you know missing deadlines things like that. How higher absenteeism is a is can be quite an easy one to spot when these problems are happening because it you find that people are taking time off to recover from stress or mental health issues. You you know you can see a pattern. Something happens in a meeting that doesn't go particularly well for them that's quite stressful. The next day they'll have to take the day off. They just can't feel like they can they can

do it. They need to recharge. Um, increased turnover is a natural um, reaction to these sorts of things happening. People that are feeling burnt out or or having high stress in their positions, they're going to leave and try and find somewhere that does look after them. Lower employee morale is kind of speaks for itself. Um, if there's a negative work environment for an individual, then they're not going to feel great. Decreased innovation and creativity. So, as we talked about before, neurody divergent individuals um excuse me, can often bring unique perspectives to their work and their problem solving um challenges. So, you don't want to stifle that creativity and innovative thinking. Um that can reduce your business's ability to develop new ideas and solutions. So, poorer quality of work follows on from that. Negative impact on team dynamics. you know, relationships can be strained when there's communication issues within

teams that affect your collaboration. So, that affects your overall team performance. Um, chronic stress and burnout can lead to physical and mental health issues which can be persistent. So, if you have healthcare um um as a benefit within your organization, people are going to be using that a lot more, which is great that it's there, but it's not ideal that they're having to make use of it in that way. So loss of expertise, you're going to be getting a a brain drain if the people that are really good at their job are leaving because of these things and reduced employee engagement goes along with everything else. Um so practical solutions um it's like feed here flexibility costs nothing and adds great value that just means if you have a person centric approach to your employees I mean that goes for anyone not just your neurode divergent employees and if it's something that can be changed that isn't going to have any impact on anybody else

then flexibility is something that we can look at empathy um understanding it's a matter of skill will and not will. So people aren't being um awkward because they can't do something in a certain way. You just have to understand that it's just not in their neurological makeup to work in that way. Um education, knowledge is the key to understanding. If more people know about um neurodeiversity and the struggles of neurode divergent people and how neurode divergent people think and work um it's going to be much better for everybody and dialogue just uh have an open conversation with with people. If people feel comfortable they will talk to you about what their needs are. Um and that's how we work around people's spiky profiles really.
So we can look at some specific things you can do uh which align with the kind of latest accepted practices in this

area. So we've got we've broken it down into small, medium and large changes that you can make in your organization.
Um relatively small changes in the workplace with minimal or zero cost. We can start with microincclusion. Um, it includes noticing and addressing many overlooked details that can make a workplace more inclusive for neurodyivergent individuals. It's about being mindful of the language we use and the assumptions we make about others. Um, how our actions might affect people with different life experiences. When life fits with the way when life fits with the way you do things, there may not have to be a reason to consider that some people see, do, process, and communicate in different ways. So that's that's culture. That's your whatever your studio culture is really. It's about empathy and understanding and being aware um of what people's needs are. Policy development. Establish policies that explicitly support neurodyiverse individuals. Make it policy to not stand for microaggressions or bullying. Be vigilant and call out

language that might be considered dismissive or derogatory towards neurodyiverent individuals including as I said earlier jokes or banter. um create more inclusive meetings, recognize non-participation, actively look for signs that someone is not comfortable. Um cameras off in Zoom meetings if that's or teams meetings. Um create more inclusive meetings and challenge assumptions about absences. If a colleague is absent at an event or meeting or unable to participate, avoid making assumptions about their commitment or professionalism. Um, not everyone wants to go to the Christmas party. We know this from experience. Um, look at recruitment and hiring. Um, inclusive job descriptions. Use clear and concise language. Avoid jargon. Alternative assessment methods. Consider implementing skillbased assessments instead of traditional interviews. Um, assisted technology support the use of

assistive assistive technology such as text to speech. uh speech to text mind mapping software to aid expression comprehension and organization spiky profile test there's a few um available online there's a few organizations that um that you can do a spiky profile test through um that's a good way for someone to understand their own um skill sets as well uh communication and management clear communication straightforward language provide written summaries of verbal instructions feedback and recognition give specific specific constructive feedback and recognize achievements regularly. Let's have a little drink here. All right, medium changes. Um, you need to invest a tangible amount of time and money. Sad reality is now that we're entering a space where margins become a genuine factor and you will have to look closely at your own studio and decide what you can support. And what we've

done is um appointed a neurodiversity champion. Um that's me. Um someone in our studio business uh whose role explicitly includes running all of these initiatives, advocating for positive change. Um and if you have mental health first aiders, this person should be one of those. So that's what I do. Uh create a studio-based support group um or employee research group. uh lab 42 we have a neurodiversity network it's open to all um so people who identify as neurody divergent people who are neurocurious um awareness training for all staff um I I see that I can understand that um training can be a bit of a budget hit sometimes but if you if your champion or the person you've got designated to do this does the training and then trains everyone else around it you can sort of do that uh pastoral support to review strategies. Additional line management

or pastoral support to regularly review strategies maintaining healthy employee well-being. Um again make this a recurring part of people's roles not just a one-time or annual assessment. Individ individualized mentoring uh person- centric approach to mentoring and coaching. um individual equipment choices as standard and again spoky spiky profile tests. Um I think that that would really really help people to understand what their strengths and weaknesses are as well as giving line managers and um people a good understanding of how to manage that person. Um employee satisfaction surveys, clear performance metrics, uh diversity audits. These are all things that you can utilize in your studio for not a lot of money and a lot of time and you just give you a really good idea of what the landscape is, how people are feeling and you know what people would like you to do going forward.
So bigger changes um so this last set of

practical steps um do represent kind of significant changes to your your processes or investment. Um, so that could be potentially out of reach for many studios, but but we found that they're worth considering if you're able. Um, so flexibility and expectations around working hours and location. So there's there's quite a lot you could do there if you can support it as a business. So core hours, um, if you're not familiar with the idea of core hours, it's a set period during the day wherein you expect everyone to be working and like outside of that time, they can basically start when they want, end where they want, what as long as they make up their hours during the day. So, um, this kind of goes hand inhand with flexible hours where you allow people to work around their individual circumstances. Um, kind of as much as possible because the baseline should be that we assume people want to do their jobs. Um, sometimes their circumstances get in the way, but let them pick things up their

way as much as is reasonable. This isn't to say be completely permissive with timekeeping. Obviously, that's not the case. Um, that's where the the core hours are intended to come into play there. So you can work with people on finding what core hours work for them, works for the majority of your studio. Um, working remotely and abroad. If your studio isn't remote first, this can be quite a bigger deal than you think to support. Um, as a studio with a lot of people at LA 42 who thrive on working in the same physical space uh, with others. This is something we've not solved, but we understand that many people work better in their own comfortable environment. Um so we're we're we're constantly striving to support that flexibility as much as possible. So letting people work from abroad can come with a large overhead. Um there there may be it may be unattainable for smaller organizations because there's a lot of factors and legal factors um you know individual laws in the countries that they want to go to. But in some

cases your pe people may need this to be with their families you know um their friends their homeland to give the best version of themselves. So a more inclusive benefits package um you can look at health care specifically neurodeiverse related healthcare services things like help at hand um a neurody diverent champion can help people get the most out of those sorts of benefits. So if you look at your on boarding and training, consider tailor tailored on boarding that can provide clear and structured onboarding processes with all of this in mind because it's a lot because we certainly found that our onboarding processes were missing a lot out that that was causing friction with certain people and look to make your training accessible as possible. So provide different formats like visual, auditory, written to to help with the way certain people learn better than other ways. So inclusive studio adaptations, that's additive environmental adaptations to promote focus. So it's things like making um minimizing noise and

distractions. So you'd have to assess the people you have and what works for them and put it against the environment you're asking them to work in. So research changes you can make like it might be changing the colors or patterns on the walls. Um changing the lighting that you have putting dividers between desks to reduce uh visual noise and audio noise. You know sight lines can be an issue for people where there's a lot in their sighteline while they're trying to work. That can be a lot. So this here could be a significant investment depending on how far far you go with it. But then the ultimate form of that is inclusive studio design. So that's designing a space from scratch based on this sort of thinking. So there's a lot to cover here and we're we're kind of coming to the end of these suggestions here, but this this one I think could be a talk on its own because there's a lot there. There's a lot of thinking around workplace design and what works better for people and what works better for monitoring those people and making sure that they're doing

what's expected versus what helps them thrive. Um, we've we at this point in the talk, we hope to have photos of our own new studio space to illustrate a lot of these things, but we actually missed the unveiling of that to be here this week. So, we don't have that unfortunately, but this is what we considered when designing our own studio studio space. And we're quite fortunate to have been able to do that. So, we started by thinking about the people we have and the people we we have in the future and what we want to build. So, it's kind of futurep proofed around where where we see ourselves going. listen to what your current people say and then you have you have to do some research into how different office configurations affect different people. So, I would say consider small enclosed rooms over open plan spaces. Um, because all the things we talked about before with acoustics, like audio that just too much noise, too much visual noise, sight lines as you're designing where your walls are, you know, how high those walls are, um, how high the ceilings are, where you can put acoustic baffling, all these sorts of things so

you can minimize these distractions and reduce the likelihood of sensory overload in people. So design lighting solutions that let people work with light sensitivity and those without light sensitivity they can work together. That can be quite a tricky thing to solve but it is possible. And I would say consider extra space which isn't immediately assigned for an everyday function like um a quiet space where it's the same as your other work spaces but it's designated as a quiet space for people to go to when they need to if they're feeling overwhelmed if they're feeling heightened um sound sensitivity on that day. Um this is a sound sens sensitivity is one of the most common problems that we've had um that we've tried to help people overcome and truly solving it without stock gaps like noise cancelling headphones. It takes a lot of thought and um money in some cases to be able to to look at how your studio space is aortioned to deal with this. And I would say leave space

to figure things out because no matter how much thought you put into it, you're going to find new things that would work better to help people thrive while they're making your games, while they're doing their jobs. So, if you can, I know it's a tall order, try and leave yourself wiggle room to be able to find new adaptations because the thinking around this stuff is is always evolving. There's always new research being done, new suggestions for better supporting people. Um key takeaways, our industry is far above average for neurode divergent workers and that's okay. I mean I think we we're all aware of that and Yuki very helpfully put it down in a survey for see common causes of neurodiversity related inefficiencies in the development environment can adversely affect your margins and staff retention issues. I think Terry covered that very well. Um, and if you consistently think of your employees as individuals, so take a person- centric approach to

everyone who you're working with and keep in mind common misconceptions around neurodiverse people. Um, again, that's education and knowledge. Um, there are small, medium, and large changes you can make at your studio to support them more fully and unlock their potential. uh have a sort of handy handy Google doc of resources if you scan the QR codes, a few links to a few organizations that are doing a lot of work around this. Um
and it includes um links to the surveys that we've used in this.
Yes.
You can check them out for yourself.
Indeed.
And that's thank you. Thank you. [Applause]
Any questions?
There's a mic coming.

Thanks for the talk by the way. That was uh awesome. Um I was going to ask is there anything specific about working in game development that has come up as a particular challenge like the challenge of actually producing games that has rubbed up against the the sort of challenge of of being neurodyiverse in any workplace but specifically the game development workspaces that you've come across. So I think that um I think games uh there are certain ways of seen as ways of doing things that are quite entrenched. Um even though our industry is not very old compared to a lot of other ones. It does it does in many ways get stuck in the past with certain ways of thinking of certain ways. This is the ideal way of doing things because this is the way it's worked for us forever until now. Why change this? So, we've definitely seen that there's friction that way. More and more people are looking at these sorts of things, but that's I can't think of anything specific other than that that there there is just this this is the way

we do it.
You know, this is the best way to make a game. Like someone comes from a different studio, this is the way that I do it. This is it worked for me then. So, it should work here with your business. Everyone's different.
It's true.
Is there anything you've noticed? Um well I think the only difference there's a lot more neurode divergent people in this industry. Um that's not so much a problem that doesn't cause it's it just means that the way people are managed in this industry is changing very rapidly and I know that the way we work at lab because we have so many people who are neurody diverent is just like this totally open people are going to be who they are and we just sort of accept people on that face value. Um, but yeah, I mean that's the only thing really.
Thank you for your question. I hope that was sufficient answer.
It's a waffle in a way.
Hello.
Hi.
Thanks are really interesting. Um, my question is is actually kind of off of off of that question which is

interesting. Um, something that I found particularly challenging over the last few years with neurodyiver people of um, neurodyiverse people on my team is managing their backlog and their priorities.
Um, especially in the game industry as priorities tend to have groups like high, very high, medium rather than a rankbased system.
My question was have you found any solutions software that has aided that? I've had some success with using rankbased priorities in Miro, but this seems to be the real pain point. Um, some of my teams would get to the point of having almost like thought paralysis when they've had too many um conflicting priorities and unfortunately with more senior positions, there's an aspect of managing your own workload as a requirement. So, I was just wondering if you have any experience in in that kind of area. specific examples. I mean that's maybe getting quite deep into a particular area that that neither Cindy nor me do.

It's like that's kind of a very production focused sort of thing. Um in bit more in general we find that there is great capacity to find new ways of looking at these particular problems that work for those particular people. Um, this probably sounds like a bit of a copout, but it is the sort of stuff that we've talked about with finding just the the best way that people communicate. Make sure that find out if if writing things down helps them absorb the priorities, the the the direction that they should be taking could be better than verbal or vice versa. following up meetings with um what's agreed in a in a written way, things like that to to help reinforce to people the way the the expectations for them basically. I think that's that's where a lot of problems come from, a misunderstanding of what's expected.
Yeah.
Um
in in my career, I've found all sorts of workarounds for my own issues that I

didn't even realize I was working around. So I I try to impart those to into people like little um tricks of finding ways to help you keep on top of your tasks and what needs doing because the traditional ways of doing it of just having your tasks in ADO or Jira or something are not necessarily
the conducive to the way certain minds work. So there's all kinds of little tricks you can have like if you know that you're going to if they're going to look at a particular thing um like like their email for example you can switch to having tasks uh as emails while they work through their emails then they their tasks are there in in priority order. Um so just things like that rather than specific pieces of software I'm afraid I don't have any suggestions there.
Yeah it's like person like what you're saying it's just each individual is going to be totally different. I mean, we've had um a couple of people in our studio that the Pomado method has greatly helped, which is just like a little clock that

ticks away and then you're doing this task for this long and moving on and moving on. Um I think it's just like our we meet once a month, our little network, our neurodiversity network, and we share ticks and tricks and tips for how to keep on track. And um we have there's like a few apps you can use. There's one called um routine something. I've got it on my phone but I can't remember it because my brain is spicy. Um which I find really great. So we just I think it's just if you have that open dialogue and you have people who are kind of going through the same thing but then they are supporting each other people will help um say well this really worked for me maybe it'll work for you and maybe something that's worked for somebody else won't work for them but it opens the door to something else. So I think it's just a lot of sharing sharing those experiences for sure.
Yeah.
Hope that helped. Thank you.
Thank you.
Going once.
Going twice.

So thank you very much everybody.
Thank you.
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