Games Connect Asia Pacific 2018 The Walls We've Built Ourselves

The tech industry in general is pretty jacked up. But even they have come to the realization that people operations are broken in a lot of ways. And Silicon Valley for all its faults has come up with some approaches that improve many of the avenues by which a company interacts with team members. Performance reviews are critical for professional development but they don’t have to be a monolithic annual process. They don’t even have to suck! Managers can actually be supportive, and we can teach the empathy and skills they need. Remote-first environments can totally work. Recruiting doesn’t have to be guesswork (or straight up nepotism, or fairy tale “meritocracy”). These are examples we can take from the tech industry of how to improve our game studios and promote more positive cultures by leading people well. This session is for company leaders who want to do just that. It will target three main areas for improvement, listing concrete steps that can be taken by a team of any size. Game development is fraught with peril. It’s almost impossible to keep a studio from suffering layoffs, funding shortfalls, and all the other ways we typically lose team members and entire companies. But there are definitely steps we can take to make our teams and our individual developers happier, more resilient, and more productive. Let’s not be trapped by The Way We’ve Always Done It. We’ve got three main points to focus on but we’ll dedicate a chunk of time to answering your questions about any area of people operations. Bring your courage and speak up so we can work on your challenges together!