1. Production SIG meet up at the IGDA booth (More of an Informal Gathering)

2.  IGDA Production SIG Roundtable (Actual Round Table Session)

I wanted to take a moment to announce the new Production SIG steering committee. We have a very excited, talented, and diverse group of industry members that represent a wide range of experience. They are, in no particular order:

Matt Zitterman, Dan Fish, Chris Oltyan, Lucien Parsons, Sally Huang, Kim Sellentin, Tom Sloper, Ashley Cheng, Dennis Crow, Chuck Hoover, and Mark Harwood

The aim is for the steering committee to help drive our group toward our new mission statement and goals (detailed below). We will be keeping the rest of the SIG in the loop as much as possible as after all, the most important thing is to make this a useful organization for it’s members.

Stay tuned for news on progress around our new initiatives soon.

Production SIG Mission Statement: Improving the art of production in our industry through sharing knowledge, experience, and best practices.

Production SIG Goals
1: To create positive change in the game industry through knowledge sharing within a community of like-minded, experienced professionals.
2: To promote effective leadership practices that make for better games.
3: To increase awareness of the value of production roles and best practices in game development.

Chuck
-Production SIG Chair

The floor is now open for nominations.   The main guideline is that you can’t nominate yourself. You will need to have someone (a sponsor) nominate you.  If you are interested in nominating someone, please check with them first to confirm they are interested.

The nominations will be open until May 12th. Please email me off list with nominations.

The nomination should include:

Candidate Name
Candidates contact info
Candidate Statement

By May 17th, all the candidate statements will be available for review on the IGDA website.  Voting will be begin on May 24th.  This will give you ample time to review the candidate statements and ask them any follow up questions.  Voting will close on May 26th and the steering committee will be announced on May 27th.

This is the first election the Production SIG has held, so there will likely be some kinks along the way (please bear with me).  If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns about the election process, please email me off list.

The floor is now open for nominations.   The main guideline is that you can’t nominate yourself. You will need to have someone (a sponsor) nominate you.  If you are interested in nominating someone, please check with them first to confirm they are interested.

The nominations will be open until May 12th.  Please email me off list with nominations.

The nomination should include:

Candidate Name
Candidates contact info
Candidate Statement

By May 17th, all the candidate statements will be available for review on the IGDA website.  Voting will be begin on May 24th.  This will give you ample time to review the candidate statements and ask them any follow up questions.  Voting will close on May 26th and the steering committee will be announced on May 27th.

This is the first election the Production SIG has held, so there will likely be some kinks along the way (please bear with me).  If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns about the election process, please email me off list.

Regards,
Heather
Production SIG Chair

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WB7BX9Q

Once the results are in, more information will be provide about the election process.

They are looking for volunteers from the SIGs to sit on  the Committee.  They will also elect at least one At Large member to be on the committee. Tom indicated to the SIG leaders that he will probably have an election from among those expressing interest and then appoint as many of the rest of those who volunteer as he can in order to accommodate as many people as possible.  Special preference will be given to foreign SIG leaders, especially those outside of North America.

Attached is a copy of the Committee Charter, if you’re interested in being on the Committee please review it and let me know off-list of your interest in the serving on the committee.

SIG_Committee_Charter_20101.04.25.doc

The IGDA Leadership Forum is intended for all those who serve in a leadership role in the game development industry and are seeking to become better leaders, create successful games, and learn from other working professionals in the game industry.

The first IGDA Leadership Forum was a smashing success with top rated sessions and 300+ delegates from over 15 countries. The 2008 IGDA Leadership Forum has EXPANDED its session offering to encompass a broad range of leadership topics, including personal leadership, project leadership and management leadership. The sessions will run in parallel tracks and will consist of a mix of lectures, panels, and interactive workshop sessions.

Baseball all-star Curt Schilling (38 Studios) and Mark Cerny (Cerny Games) will open each day with a keynote. Other production/leadership gurus speaking include Mike Capps (Epic Games), David Edery (Xbox Live Arcade), Mat Hart (Ninja Theory), Richard Hilleman (EA), Clinton Keith, David Mann (Foundation 9), Trent Oster (BioWare Corp.), Michael Saladino (Pandemic Studios), Tim Train (Big Huge Games) – among many others.

Full program and speaker details are at:

http://www.igda.org/leadership/?page_id=3

For registration details (early bird pricing ends September 1st):

http://www.igda.org/leadership/?page_id=4

(FYI, last year’s conference sold out. There are only 500 seats or so to fill, and we expect them to go fast…)

1. IGDA Leadership Forum – this was held last November in conjunction with the IGDA. It was a huge success and we are starting to make plans for the next one this fall.
2. Production Wiki – Adrien David is heading up this project. We have added a reading list and some other information to it. I would be happy to have people contribute to this whenever they want. I know that Chris Otalyn posted his roundtable notes from the Leadership Forum there. If you would like a log-in, please let me know.
3. Vendor Database – this is something I would like to get started on and I will try to work on getting something basic up and running.
4. Survey – About 65 people have taken the survey and I’ve collected some good data. I still need to collate the results and send around to the list. I plan to get that done soon.

We then discussed what we can do to make the SIG more useful to everyone:

1. There was a request to change the reply button so that it will just send the reply to an individual, instead of the Production SIG list. Thoughts? Let me know and if the majority wants this changed, I will make the change.
2. SIG endorsed Project Management method. We discussed how every project is different, but it might be useful to have a general PM method that we write up and endorse as a starting point.
3. Information on local Production SIG members. We talked about putting together a list of which local chapters members are affiliated with and perhaps trying to get a some local production SIG gatherings organized, in conjunction with the local chapters. This would present some good networking opportunities to connect with other producers in your city.
4. Production Seminars – in conjunction with the local IGDA chapter, we could do some production oriented seminars. A 2 hour seminar on managing pre-production for example. This would probably work best with some of the larger chapters at first, but it would be great to get a bunch of local production events organized.
5. Case Studies. We discussed doing case studies to show examples of games that used different types of PM methods and they can be modified for game production. This would provide some valuable real world information.
6. Advocating to students. We discussed taking with students more to explain what a producer does and perhaps get them interesting in pursuing a career in production. We discussed putting together a brief career plan of what classes to take, what to study and read, etc.
7. Role Definitions within different companies. We thought it would be useful to write up a matrix of how each company defines the production roles. For example and AP at EA has different responsibilities than and AP at Ubisoft. It would help us come up with some standard definitions of producers roles, and would be useful when evaluating resumes.
8. Evangelizing the Production SIG. There are still many producers who do not know about the SIG and would be interested in being a part of it. So please start inviting people to join the IGDA and become a part of the Production SIG.
9. Project Management Resource – gathering PM resources and discussing the general pros/cons of each within game development
10. Producer of Month – might be fun to feature a producer of the month. This person would be interviewed about their job, daily duties, tips and tricks for producing. This would be a good way to highlight the variety of projects people are working on – Serious games, educational games, interactive rides, virtual reality, and games
11. PMI – discussed working with the Project Management Institute on getting some type of game production module. This is something Jason Della Rocca discussed with them awhile back and it might be interesting for the SIG to pursue this further.
12. Government Proposal Process – post information on how this process works if you are developing serious games.
13. 10 Best Practices – one quick project we discussed was putting together a list of 10 best production practices. This doesn’t need to be too fancy, just useful information that all producers could use. This is something that could easily be handled over the mailing list, and then we can post it on the website and perhaps publish in one of the IGDA monthly newsletters.
14. Cross-events to the Producer’s Guild of America – Someone thought it would be useful to talk with producers in the film industry to get information on how they handle certain production issues. For example visual effects, or a voiceover shoot. The PGA might be a good resource for some cross-events, as they have started a New Media Caucus. These events would like happen in either Los Angeles or New York, as that is where the PGA is most active.
15. List of Volunteer Opportunities – we need to put together a list of the volunteer opportunities, so that people know how they can get involved. I will start a small list and we can build on it as we grow.

So as you can see, there are a lot of great ideas here. If you are interested in volunteering for anything please let me know. I am putting together a small group of volunteers who will discuss the projects and then we will pick a few to start on. Also, if you have any other suggestions on what you’d like, please let me know.

I hosted a round table where we discussed the future of the Production SIG and how to make this a valuable resource for all of us. Generally, many people felt that there was a need for some type of standard production terminology and job descriptions – just to get everyone on the same page when discussing
production issues. The wide variety of producers and their role on a project, along with how producers can develop their career path were also major areas of interest. Here are a few ideas we came up with for some resources and information the Production SIG can provide:
1. Job titles and descriptions
2. Blueprints for producer career path
3. Identify core competencies
4. Outsourcing Database
5. Developer database
6. Case Studies on different situations a producer faces. (Perhaps modeled after Harvard Business Review)
7. List of due diligence questions to ask developers and vendors
8. Creating bid packages
9. Information on PMP certification – game module?
10. Help people plan for career development. Identify core competencies for each producer type, and then determine why type of training is necessary for these.
11. Information on Project Management Methods. Case Studies of different methodologies.
12. Information on scoping out a project
13. Information on Risk assessment and how to do risk analysis
14. Samples of project schedules and plans? Project archives?
15. Standardized naming conventions for different parts of production. Alpha/Beta mean different things to different companies.
16. Suggested Reading list
I will be working to implement some of these suggestions in the next few months, and create a plan for enhancing the usefulness of the production SIG to all of our members. If you have any feedback or suggestions, or are interested in volunteering, please contact me offlist at heather at mediasunshine dot com.
In addition, I will be hosting a gathering of the Production SIG at GDC in February. If you are attending GDC, please plan to attend. Talking to you in person is a great way to get feedback on how to make the SIG more viable for you.