The Power of Introspection: The Fuel That Keeps Teams Resilient

Hi everyone. My name's Yachi. I'm the general manager of the All Pixel Souls brand of Streamline Media Group. So All Pixel Souls is one of the brands under Streamline Media Group umbrella that focuses and specializes in large-scale 3D production. I bit of a personal introduction. I entered video games as a bilingual project manager. Uh and I worked on projects such as Street Fighter 5, Little Nightmares 2 uh before I had the opportunity to grow a new brand together with the Streamline Media Group as a general manager called All Pixel Souls. And naturally during it was it was a big shift going from a project manager uh to a general manager running a brand and it was a total paradigm shift between

uh being very milestone and project focused to single project focused to um looking at long-term and teams focused in terms of longevity. And it was a huge shift in mindset that uh was of course disorienting at first, but it was a very enjoyable experience having the opportunity to learn and experiment with different configurations of teams uh and it naturally led me to really think about you know what makes teams uh resilient in the long term. Uh what makes business resilient in the long term. So it a lot about business continuity. Uh and the reason that I chose this topic for GDC 2021 is because it's not only beneficial for the business owners to have this understanding or bigger context of what it's what's needed to uh keep the teams running resilient in the long term. Uh but it's all I thought it would be also beneficial for uh producers and

project managers who don't really have the opportunity to run businesses from A to Z to necessarily uh on a on a daily basis to have this bigger context as they're uh running their day-to-day the ins and out of production. Uh it definitely gives you a new eyesight and a paradigm to look at different things uh as you are problem-solving cuz you know project management management is a continuation of problem-solving and uh on a daily basis. Uh which is why I chose this topic. So, going into the next slide, um why focus on resilience? Well, game development scene is uh suffering a lot from issues such as high turnover, uh burnouts, mental health issues, um all of which has come to the surface a lot during this pandemic uh and that there's definitely a lot of eyes on us

and how we do it uh things here. Uh there's a lot of scrutiny. Uh and it's easy to think that it's all because of, you know, the pandemic, the coronavirus, and people being stuck at home, yes, to a degree has a factor and I think it has accelerated a lot of these issues to the surface again. Uh but we have to remember that these are the the issues that we've and the challenges that we've always been as an industry uh that was prevalent all the way throughout. So, um and and I thought it was very unfortunate because uh a lot of people who come into this industry, they come into it out of passion and love for craft and for for games. Um and naturally that made me really think about, okay, I am running a brand that focuses on large-scale production. How do I keep this large team resilient over time? And how do I keep teams that wants to grow

their career in games and not necessarily get burned out after 2 to 3 years? Uh and how do I figure that uh so that we're not just set up for a single success or a single title uh success or single product success uh or single milestone or project success, but rather uh business continuity and how we can all win together as a team. So, in in terms of career growth. And my values uh aligned with uh is aligned with the Streamline Media's Group's value. Uh the the company mission here is that we're building uh our mission is to build a place where uh the creators and the fans can come together and make a living out of their passion and make a living out of their uh of of the game the joys of making game. And that that aligned and we're on the same page very fortunately. And as a result, I had a lot of opportunities to experiment and uh you know, have fun

with okay, how do I configure everything so that our team doesn't get burned out after 2 to 3 years? Uh so, that it's not just about winning in the in the short term, winning this milestone or winning this project, but you know, us being together and uh surviving this and being resilient together uh in the long term. So, um Streamline was founded in 2001 in Amsterdam in an apartment in Amsterdam. I think that's a a story that a lot of the indie developers share. Uh but I think what's what really uh set Streamline apart for me was that they have survived for 20 years. Um which in other industry other industries it may not be much, but I think in games after you know, 5 6 years of being in games as a company, you're considered one of the fossils, which is uh hilarious but also very unfortunate at the same time because it points to the fact that not many businesses and not many teams survive after their initial passion or initial uh

fire has died down. Streamline has gone through uh through throughout the 20 years uh multiple changes. We have gone through the changes in technology, changes in console cycles, economic downfalls, 9/11, global pandemics, global drama. Uh and it was our resilience that has made us survive in all of those challenges, and not only survive but strive in all of those challenges, uh you know, continuing to build a product and publish products, uh continuing to not only uh adapt to different ecosystem, but actually build the ecosystem called games, uh combining the media and technology together uh in our scene. So, as we were going through that journey as a game uh game developer, we have started out at one point as a service provider, and we're now a game developer and a publisher as well. So, throughout the journey, we have definitely learned how to retain talents, you know, how to attract and grow top talents,

uh how to be creative. I think creative is uh creativity so is the word that's overlooked a lot of times. Um and a very kind of focused a lot in terms of art and design when we talk about creativity, but creativity in how we do business and how we do processes, uh how we build teams is a thing that we have learned to throughout our 20 years of journey as well. And of course, how to do crisis management, which was uh you know, proven very successful. My team and Streamline has definitely surprised me uh in the last year as we went through the pandemic together. Uh and of course, business continuity. How do we continue uh leading the industry? How do we continue building the ecosystem and not just following what's set out there and building our own paths. So, taking a step back, resilience I think there's many layers of resilience. There's of course individual

resilience. And when I refer to individual resilience, it's talking about a VUCA-tolerant individuals. A VUCA is of course a military term to describe a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous situations that we like to use here as well because that's how it feels like sometimes building games. And these VUCA-tolerant individuals are characterized often by very high emotional intelligence and their desires to introspect and really understand, you know, who they are, where their place in the world is, what they're motivated by, what drives them, what gives them purpose. And these individuals are often very value-oriented. You know, they if they believe in something, they'll stand up for something. And these individual are very resilient individuals and they will pursue what they want to pursue in their lives. Um but then comes a second layer of resilience called team resilience because it doesn't mean that you have

20, 30 very resilient, very VUCA-tolerant individuals and your team's automatically resilient. Because no one can be resilient 100% of the times, but that's how it feels like, you know, being in this industry sometimes. You would have moments of where you fall off the way wagon. But without the team around you to support you and kind of bring you out of there, it sometimes feels like you're not able to go through it, no matter how resilient you are. So, that's that's really all about team resilience. It's about building the support network and the relationship and the structures to help these individuals through their ups and downs. Of course, everyone has ups and downs, but kind of shortening their downs at the the duration of the downs so that they're able to rise up quickly and, you know, get back to it um through the help and support of their

teams. So, this is built by creating opportunities for teams to have real conversations. And when I say real conversations, I'm talking about really frank and honest conversations about uh themselves as humans. Uh and also, you know, they're about their performance, about their work, about their feelings and emotions. So, I'll talk uh a little bit more later about the exact examples of, you know, what kind of meetings we create or what kind of opportunities we create to do this, but that is essentially what teams uh team resilience is. And then comes uh organizational resilience, which is a little bit more complicated compared to the team resilience. So, again, just because you have individuals who are resilient or teams you even teams who are resilient doesn't mean that your organizations automatically going to survive uh and you have business continuity for years to come.

Organizational resilience, it's all about um building the infrastructure to allow your business to evolve organically. So, there's a lot of words in there, but when I say uh evolve organically, we all uh have, you know, sparks of ingenuities or ideas. Uh and even more so, individual resilience who are able to work as a team because they're constantly talking to each other, inspiring each other, generating new ideas, new way of doing things, new way of doing business, new way of doing processes, uh or creating art, or new way of uh creating games. So, unless your business is able to capture those ideas and turn them into actual outcomes, turn them into actual products, uh or processes, or uh business services, uh or business proposals, um these ideas stay as ideas, and these uh in uh resilient teams and resilient

individuals constantly need um to see outcomes of their of their work. So, unless their conversations and their sparks of ideas turn into actual actionable items that gets uh tr- uh passed, and uh that gets passed it and turns into an action within their organization, uh they're not necessarily going to feel happy in your organization. So, these creative and very diverse and inspired teams uh need to feel well, need to actually contribute to evolving your business uh model and evolving your products, evolving how you do things to move your business forward. Then only they'll feel like I'm in an environment where I can succeed. I'm in an environment where I feel like I have a purpose. And I'm I'm I'm in an environment where I feel like I'm growing. So, this is uh in a sense um what it means to to be resilient on many

different layers. Uh and now I'm going to go into different examples or case studies uh of what I mean by these. So, first, individual resilience. Of course, um a huge thing would be making sure that your hiring process is designed to find and hire these uh vocal tolerant and high emotional intelligence uh people. Uh and I call this uh process of uh as you know, finding the gems and because it's it's really it's really that. It's going through and finding the people who sparks uh and shines within your team. And being open to find them because it will take a while sometimes. And it all starts with uh removing prerequisites that narrow down the diversity pool. And when I talk about diversity, um a lot of people uh are very uh concerned or they're they feel like it's a huge challenge

because they think they uh they tell me like, "Oh, you know, when I talk about diversity, I really I really just want to focus on, you know, their skills or their merits rather than looking to uh hire for the sake of hiring diverse groups." Diversity um doesn't just necessarily mean backgrounds and and gender as well though. Uh it means that you're open to removing barriers that blocks particular groups of people from entering your space. And um for us, it means that removing any prerequisite such as uh you need to have a game degree or a game backgrounds to be able to work with us or you need to have certain amount of experience to be able to work with us. Um our team comes from all walks of life uh and when I say all walks of life, I mean I have producers who actually myself majored in science, uh producers who majored in finance, I have leads artists

who have majored in finance, have decided to take up art, have studied on their own, and enter the space. People from hospitality, entertainment. And all of that links back to resilient individuals because often times these people have uh tried and tested many different things in their lives in search of what they like or or what drives them forward. And having this experience of having gone through this thought process or this process of finding their purpose in life, it automatically gives them uh gives them the resilience because they have already tried and tested many things. They they are proactive and they're looking for what they what continuously for what they like and they're always thinking about it, you know, what their purpose is uh and what what drives them forward. So,

onboarding these individuals who have this mindset into your team uh would bring you this huge and diverse background that and experience that follows them into your pool uh of uh solutions uh finding solutions. So, when you're even when you're looking at uh uh just trying to solve a resource problem or trying to solve a milestone problem uh having people that have thought from multiple different angles, who have different context, different backgrounds, that adds a lot to your uh solutions pool and how you look at different things, how you how you're approaching a certain uh issue or question, which is why we always welcome diverse teams. Also, our interviews are very focused on um and designed to have very open and frank conversations about who they are and their values. Uh not just about, you know, what they have done before, what their skills are, you know, what are the what are the

responsibilities and duties you have carried out in your previous workplace, but focused, uh especially in the last interview, a lot on, you know, who are you as a human and what are you looking for and uh what are you trying to achieve by joining this group called Streamline over here. Um and that leads to the next point, which is the open applications. Uh, what we found is that a lot of the times, um, these individuals, these gems that we're looking for, uh, who are resilient, often come through interesting routes. They don't uh, they usually apply for one thing and they end up in another place because through the interview process, we have found that, "Oh, perhaps this person could be interesting for this team or perhaps this person is what you're looking for and we refer them a lot between the departments." So, open application is exactly that, um, designed to catch people who may not exactly know what they want to do or may not exactly have an idea that you I want to apply for exactly for this

role, but they know that they want to join us uh, here at Streamline uh, or they know that they want to join the the games industry or the creative industry, but they don't simply know how to start or they don't quite know what what is their best fit. So, open applications is is designed to uh, catch those and that as a result will uh, immediately open up and widen your pool that you're looking at uh, to grow your team and grow your resilient team. So, next up is team resilience. Um, so, now that you have in uh, resilient individuals, it's about retaining them. It it's about uh, uh, retaining them and uh, building relationships and networks and support systems around them. And as I talked about this before, it's really just comes down to um, getting them ready and building their muscles for VUCA situations before the

situation gets VUCA. Uh, what I mean by that is for example, uh, before things get hectic, uh, having regular one-on-ones uh, or organizing round table discussions or book clubs and lunch and learns where people are able to share ideas uh and you know, share their emotions, share how they're feeling, or share their opinions freely before things get stressful. That way they get into the habit of sharing, they get into the habit of uh knowing each other and giving each other benefit of the doubt when things get stressful. And that that really helps build that resilient muscles when things get crazy. So, regular one-on-ones is something that we do here in all levels uh regardless of who you are uh as an artist, as a as a lead, as a as a director, uh as a C-suite um all all managers and and teams have regular one-on-ones with each other uh for this purpose, talking about their

personal goals, their strengths, and their motivators, and most importantly, their fears. You know, what makes them tick, what makes them uh afraid because a lot of the times when uh VUCA situation hits, uh our lizard brain comes out and we react. So, unless you have that uh built that emotional trust bank with each other it is very easy to misunderstand each other, and that often leads to you know, teams falling out and individuals uh not being able to be resilient in those situations. So, all of these sessions are uh designed to for that purpose. Even though they may not always be talking about emotions or feelings, it's a practice of getting them to talk to each other and have uh share opinions and actually argue uh before things get stressful. One example of that is what we call the NPS. It's a net promoter score uh that all managers and leads give to each other uh on a weekly basis. So, we'll be

evaluating our week um um saying, "Oh, my week was and give a score out out of 10. Uh and we'll highlight any low scores or high scores during a meeting as well so that individuals are able to share what made that week uh particularly good or particularly bad. So that we're able to celebrate the wins together and as well as uh share any particular uh downfalls or uh fallouts that they've had uh and if there's any uh still still any elephants in the room, that meeting is exactly there for people to, you know, talk it out and before they wrap up the week. So all of these things are designed to uh get people to know each other like human to human and I think that's especially important as we uh as as an industry as we adopt this hybrid model of working from home and working from the office. Uh you know,

when when you're not able to talk in person, these uh exercises or memories or, you know, muscle memories of having done this will really pay off when things get stressful uh or when situations turn uh Vuca. Next up is organizational resilience. So now that you have an individual who is resilient and they're supported by other individuals who are resilient uh in a team network, um it's about creating an environment and I I would like to use the analogy called uh greenhouse, right? If you want to grow certain types of plants or certain types of uh cactus, you need to recreate their optimum environment. So the optimum environment for these Vuca tolerant and resilient individuals and teams who have high emotional intelligence, who is very self-aware, uh is to allow them to create their own

career paths because that's what led them here in the first place. So, why not let them continue their paths? Uh this can mean internal uh career growth, but this can sometimes also mean external career growth. Uh we celebrate people when uh they get a promotion or uh they find opportunities outside of our organization if it means that they're able to pursue their career paths or pursue their goals that they've always had it in mind. Also, it means that deliberately building our business uh with contingency and space for innovation, growth, and experiments. So, I myself is one of the experiments uh that I'm referring to here. Uh in 2018, we have introduced the brands, All Pixels being one of them, uh in order to diversify our revenue uh revenue streams and customer base. So, uh we used to do things all as a group called under our Stromline Studios. Uh

we used to do pretty much A to Z of video game development under one uh one studio. But, we have uh uh we have created these different diverse brands, uh as you can see here in the screen. Um we have split out our brands and created the new ones to be able to uh focus and uh create their own business paths into different areas of not only video games, but in entertainment uh media and technology in general. So, as you can see here, um when your business is diversified as this, it uh it creates a safe network and and um what what we call uh geometric growth. It means that if one um one brand is able to grow, uh it doesn't mean that, you know, their setback is immediately reflected on your as a whole, but you still have other

supporting pillars uh who is able to continue their operations regardless. So, this diversity again is what creates a safe network for you to for you as stakeholders, shareholders, or founders to have a much more uh receptive uh mindset and an attitude to anything that comes up within your organization cuz we are humans, too. And it doesn't matter how much high potential your team is or uh how much potential your team has if all of those ideas are going to be uh ignored or not taken up because you're too afraid that it will affect the business. Uh so, it's all about creating that diversity and also creating that flat hierarchy and being comfortable to hand over that decision-making power and control to areas who uh where it's needed and those who are able to make those decisions uh on a daily basis.

Um and allowing uh those individual decision-makers to really shape your business uh as part of uh being as part of your team. So, to summarize this um going back to uh going back to the previous slide to summarize this it's all about um yes, finding a resilient and creating an environment creating a team where able where they're able to self-introspect uh self-reflect and really talk about um their goals as a human and really um being allowing them to build a rapport between the teams. So, again, creating that team resilience. Uh but at the same time, you as an organization being able to uh have that infrastructure where you're able to capture all of those individual sparks of these very resilient individuals and

turn that into actual business ideas or business proposals that shapes your business forward and shapes the ecosystem and the industry forward. So it's it's all about creating an environment and creating creating an environment where you're able to not only hire and attract but retain those high EQ and VUCA tolerant individuals within your organization. And a lot of this can be applied as I said to your individual projects management when you're doing problem solving. It is a new way of looking at things. It's not just individual wins or short-term wins of you know, making our milestone this month or making our project or game this this year, but all about okay, how do I make a decision that will affect the team positively in the long term. All right, so that is it.

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'll be able to go through them in the live Q&A session afterwards. Thank you very much for tuning in.