How to create agile teams and foster the culture of excellence while developing games

[Music] alright cool well hi everyone again flight here to have you here hopefully I don't have like food coma hopefully you're not upset because it's sunny in London and you're here with me I'll try to be as entertaining as possible and convey your message somehow okay great so I'm Sabrina I've worked to five different countries in my career I worked I had my own studio i'm from brazil i had my own studio back in style paulo if anybody being in sao paulo you have are you brazilian beautiful watching are you brazilian too you've been there great so um yes i'm from sao paulo i had my studio there but i worked in other countries like mexico chile germany i work in sweden right now so

we're kicking in stockholm work at square enix before so i had to you know some other perspective on how to do that and basically I work with almost yeah more than different 20 different nationalities and languages and cultures and approaches and that's what I'm going to share with you guys a little bit more about how it was for me to work with people that are so different the approach problems differently or have different opinions and sometimes try to convey a message you have a meeting and they don't understand each other and how do you proceed with that trying to be agile which is a beautiful buzzword right now and trying to actually develop a game so I've probably hired I don't know hundreds of people fired about 50 so let's not bad that yet but I think it building a team is very hard because it depends a lot on what your objective hiring people yes it's not that

difficult there's a lot of people that want to work in the industry there's a lot of people that want to work in big companies like when you start working for example when I was at screening sore now a king or even when I was working at good games all my friends and people around what I go can you get your job I do this and headed out and they were all really brilliant but it's hard to build a team right and that's a very quote a very nice quote here that I actually like because I've worked with people that had like 20 25 years of experience in the Martin they were brilliant but at the same time I work with people that had 20 25 years of experience in market and they were outdated or they thought they were superstars or those young people they're just fresh out of college and like oh I'm so talented I'm just so good and it's hard because if you're building a team they need a function together have you ever entered a team or have you ever been in a project in which there was as we Brazilian like to call and you know that little bit of drama you know

yeah I don't like that or he said this or oh I don't want to do this how many people said I don't want to use JIRA I want to use post-it or I want to use post-it I want everything in line so it's more about the group than having that amazing person it's like sports if you have one amazing brazilian footballer doesn't mean that the team is going to win all the time yeah I'm not going to go there I know are you thinking let's just pass it video games but it takes a lot of effort right to have a successful team and it depends on I think I matured throughout the years hopefully and now I think it's much more about mentality where are you and what your objectives and how do you connect that what do you want to achieve with it do you want to make a fun game that's one thing do you want to make a successful product that's not necessarily a fun game in my point of

view am i part of the market and my danisha what am i building exactly and I think throughout the companies that have been and the target audiences I'll be working with mobile free to play for a very long time we did a little bit of console as well but just very so much and building that team is a lot about aligning the mentality you do not need to have 20 white males to make it work but you do not need to have 20 different people to make your work it's about what they want to achieve together sorry so we need to combine some of the factors over here first you need people through the team you need people right yes thank you and then like I said they need to be aligned somehow to find an objective but at the same time one of the things that I really like to do is align the goal why are they sorry why are they here what do they want to do if you're for example wants to launch a game I'm going to make a meal in a day I've never done that

myself but the company I work for it actually doesn't play bubble witch saga three okay anyway so if they want to launch it I'm 1 million dollar a day game people need to be a line of course stakeholders will be like yes let's make it successful let's do like that but maybe one of my artists just want to have better renders or do you want to paint better or Mike olders when I have you know those beautiful lines of code they have named conventions and they're going to spend time working on documentation and the producers going to like guys so we need to go there's a little bit faster and somehow somehow the producer that's my thing right but the producer needs to find what is the common objective over there is it a promotion it's more money everybody loves our money right thank you very much so maybe is this project something that can actually help you develop inside the corporation or if it's a smaller team is this something that will

actually help you get the funding you need all the publisher you need to align their once you do that you get ownership they're like okay yeah I need to do this is my responsibility because I owned it and if I do this this is what's beneficial for me for my team from a company so on so forth I like to combine also different levels of experience people have been through a lot they they know better so they're more generally more preventive they're like okay so I've done it like this before and it works amazing so many times I had like scrum masters coming to me and be like no no we definitely the post-it wall it works better and we put the backlog all in postage it works better then just to make fun I said what is somebody rages and destroy all the posters and then won't we do you write them again ok but I think it's all about different levels

of experience so that you have different suggestions there's a lot of people that you know have you tried this tool that to all the other tool okay maybe that works it doesn't mean necessarily what works before we work right now but it actually is a way to start and then the last through I think are the key it's all about adaptation you need to adapt trust me I had to adapt a lot and I was a little example when I moved from Chile to Germany does anybody ever work with German here I love them by the way it was right after the world cup so yeah anyway yes I moved there right after yeah because I just really wanted to have it hard but we are different Brazilians and Germans are slightly different I like to think for me it's all about how are you feeling how are you feeling today are you okay are you feeling comfortable there anything that I can do to unblock your road so you can develop the best game ever and they are

more like are you doing it is it ready tomorrow great so one of them came to me and actually said I don't like what you've done it broke my heart I was like okay do I cry what do i do am I 400 he's unhappy that's the first thing to feeling came to my head is like he's unhappy so what I want to reach with the adaptation is that you first need to get to know the people are working with that's why some companies do seven interviews but you do need to get to know them or at least understand a little bit about their backgrounds that's why I boardy is so important because maybe they just wanted to be direct to be efficient I actually want to have one hour lunch with you so that we get to know each other better so I know what kind of management you're used to they just want to sit down and eat lunch and just yell and you're 15 minutes and then we just go live like a cop so I have to learn and it's important when you put their team that you do that you adapted like that do not

change all the time to make everyone happy I discovered it they're not going to be happy not everybody is going to be happy but as long as i am known kidding what as long as you can actually get something without them with stress it's even better and the vision right it's very broad for you to come and say let's make a successful game what does that mean what is success is it top one top 10 top three top 100 300 how much money how many users retention how what's the percentage is it just to get return you invest I don't even know so if you give them a vision you'll give them the freedom but at the same time you give direction right what is the frame that you need to be inside what are you doing you want to make the best bubble shooter okay for whom so give them exactly and clearly what the objective is so that you discuss the interpretation of that and that's that's the rich part about building a team right and talk how many

people here has already had communication problems in the team while working a game come on bring it up guys absolutely and how many of you don't even need to raise your hand but how many times have you seen two people working might want us to hear the other desk is here but you're doing the same task just because they didn't like two looked at each other and talk and I find this too funny when people say I don't know why we need to do daily standup you know just need to report what we're doing like well it's serious more than reporting what you're doing but that's why because if you didn't look at jira or at the board and you didn't say when you were doing you're going to do the same test who doesn't want to draw characters right who doesn't want to paint who doesn't want to do the AI source but you need to talk to each other and somebody was when I was doing you

somebody interrupt me and what about introverted I was like what about the little talk but you know I mean they're not going to come like you and just say I said yeah I know that's why you can ask them you can have 10 ones you can have them regular message on whatever you use the Skype or whatever is that you use you can have them write anonymous posted I do say that to people should send me and I learn was posted if you don't feel comfortable telling me what's the problem but that's why you have retrospectives as well it's not just talk about feelings is to give everybody an opportunity to voice something out even if they're shy or introverted but anyways it's a lot about teamwork right if you am yours I'll show you mine we working together we discussed it I discovered that it helps so much when you're planning something that you actually have to do the whole planning you sit down with the people and you discuss how are you going to

build that feature how are you going to integrate what is the dependencies show what you're doing to people they will show what they're doing it is going to be aligned its ownership give them their actual responsibility is not just telling a developer like oh you're going to do this AI this is your task by it's about okay you're going to use these AI and that's going to give us liquidity for players and that's all multiplayer is going to do this or this is going to be the difficulty or the level and because of that our retention is going to be give them the real story even if they say they don't care about the business it's always important to see how much in fact exactly everything member is going to have on the development that's crucial this new ownership a few part of it and then me as a producer I do not have to carry on my shoulders the weight of the business alone they will help me get there and then alignment but unfortunately I don't know who decided English was the language ring somebody did you got to

learn English and you're going to work in English I speak Portuguese by the way not spent well I speak Spanish but I speak Portuguese and so I have people from all over the world working in English how many English non first language english speakers i have here that makes me so happy so you understand what i mean right you're in the heated discussion and you want to express yourself and just language this is having enough words right and we're right is like then I sometimes of work maybe I dance or I do some body kind of thing so they understand what I a man in dnd just like oh you're so passionate and maybe was just uh it's very hard but that's the point that I want to make is that don't forget things do get lost in translation believe me I I was a teacher of English for four years in brazil things do get lost in translation things are misinterpret especially if you're

working with native speakers by coming with I hate this it just means that I just liked it it doesn't mean that I'm going to die because of it so that's also important to keep in mind and communication again evolved English does get better now that people work in English it does get better I mean miracles happen like it gets better and then team culture there's a lot of debate and I could be talking I have like five four minutes I could be talking about this forever please grabbing for a coffee later but what I want to say about seeing culture you need to create always from the start everything is different and it could be like in November it was just us but if in December it's all of us it's a different case it is a different team and perhaps what was working here will not work with you guys I still like you guys as well that's not the point but it's just a minor work it might not work and you need to revisit that all the time and what is it is it a team that

hates meetings everybody hates mayonnaise but is it or is it a team that wants to have their opinion or at least be hard and everything they need constant feedback is it once a month how do you test your game is it a team that wants to play the game because that's also very challenging if you're making your game in your future sir I'm going to play the whole game i'm just going to test my level and that's it no you need to create the culture is a habit right it's about anything else that we do is just habit creation but have the team understand that you're working for it and reward them if you don't have a budget to reward your team and do something different I don't know make them create something give them a creative day it doesn't really matter but get this coach you're going it helps a lot routine retention because let's face it right the industry is growing opportunities are growing look at me I've been through five different countries in four and a half years so i

have to say that I've been um hopping around but it is important to keep the talented in your employees in your team you want that so make sure that they understand that they are working for a culture and with other people and their actions do impact whatever they working you impact every tale other tips my tip is what I do now dried you I have one-on-ones with everybody enmity but I have the luxury of having a small team I already had 80 people in my team and that was impossible to have one-on-ones with everybody what I want does not mean a date it means I sit with them for 15 minutes and just talk and sometimes they don't want to open up so I just talked about me and then yeah because I like doing that by the way but then make you comfortable enough to talk about themselves as well three okay have seen my trap team events and a one thing we do I don't take the team out for lunch and pay for it all the time I've ever being ever been to Stockholm for

expensive by the way so I don't do that but we do bring our food and we just sit together and we eat lunch together and that's a team lunch we I actually scheduled it but we just bring our food it is normal but we talk about other things besides work because yeah we spend a lot of time together right knowledge sharing make them present something they like or whatever is that their play or talk about a game they played before or a book whatever just share the game jams do a team wall make them put up their arts there or whatever is that they want or means or pictures of me with drawings it doesn't but give them a space to express themselves and facilitating dialogue is so in detail for Silla 13 dialogue what is very roomy maybe when they say something repeat after it or say it again with different words double-check actually help them get what they want especially if they don't understand each other I have a whole other bunch of slides but because time is running out I

would like to open for questions because nobody is able to ask any questions because the sessions are so short so I do hope that you guys ask me questions now we have two minutes but thank you so much for listening but don't leave me talking alone so please questions come on yes wait microphone hi I was just starting what your pictures with a small team that's extremely dysfunctional yeah so like you have people you know like you're saying when you have people who are all very talented in their own area but none of them know each other's areas and then it's really difficult to get them to bond so you have any good tips for that yeah sure I think the like I said you need to find something in common right the fact that they work with video games they probably like it so and trust me I already worked I had my own company where seven people and some people were like first-person

shooters hey and we had almost nothing in common it was very very hard and everybody felt entitled we Millennials herejust oh but anyway what I would suggest they do need to spend more time together doing something other than working eating is something that every human being has in common even though I met some people that don't eat week I don't trust them but you need to find something that they can do together or make them solve something together in which they need each other or they trust each other because that's it they are going to be dysfunctional in the beginning and it's all about trust right if you don't trust that the other person is going to deliver on time or is going to understand what you're saying it is if there's a barrier so I don't know them we do you talk about it later you can give me more examples or characteristics but I would either have them solve something together or have them spend time doing something else talking about something else besides just work hope I hope that answers your

questions yes cool more please one more question yeah how do you deal with people that have a very very bad opinion about the project or working on when they sail all this game sucks i hate it more like we've been developing this this this this this and this and i see no change on the kpi mm-hmm okay well if there are no change over kpi's you need to give them hope right or you need to actually say it's going to change first you need to believe that's going to happen because they know right i think it's about attitude it's like i said if they feel the ownership in difference becomes smaller so they will not be like there are no changes here are ready to do anything about it if they feel responsible for it they will definitely do something about it and there are some times that i have people sing like well

we don't have enough documentation on this then I just all right would you like to start making it why not you found the problem let's try to make a solution together because until they come up with solutions instead of problems it's very challenging right so I would just turn in them and be like okay so what can you do to make it better or what can what do you suggest and something like that yeah sorry times up thank you so much guys the pleasure [Applause] [Music] you