Creating Visions, Building Teams & Releasing Games

Keerthana AK at UXDX Community: Bengaluru. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYwWsBAzQJY

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

A lesson from my first project

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, my name is Keerthana, and today I'll be talking about a topic that is close to my heart: when you have new projects, how do you align your team, and how do you execute faster? It seems like a big topic, but I'll try to keep my talk as practical as possible.

[00:00:18] Who am I? My name is Keerthana. I started my career as an engineer at Accenture. I spent about two years there, and after that I spent about eight years working in early-stage startups, as an analyst and then as a product manager. My last startup had a successful exit; I'm really happy about it. I currently manage a portfolio of casual games at Zynga.

[00:00:42] Before I talk to you about my learnings, I want to start with an incident that happened early on in my career, which shaped the way I work with my team. On the first project I was PM on, I was put in the middle of a crisis situation. The customer had been expecting a delivery two months prior to the time I joined, and things had not panned out the way they had planned. They were furious, and they were taking all the frustration out on me. And I did the absolute worst thing I could do as a PM at that point in time: I took out the entire frustration on my team. I pushed them really hard. I didn't even try to understand whether they had the entire customer context or not.

[00:01:31] The good news was that the project was a success. The bad news was that within a month's time, one of the team members resigned, saying that the pressure was intolerable. That was the first time in my career that I realized how much weight my words carried and what an impact they had on my team. On that day I decided that I would never let such a thing happen again in my career, and over these last five years I've taken conscious steps to ensure that my team is always happy.

New games, ambiguity and time pressure

[00:02:06] Today, again, I stand in a similar situation, where I manage an initiative in my current company where I'm supposed to build new games, and there is always time pressure. So it becomes really tricky, and I'm faced with certain situations which are unique to this kind of project, where there is a lot of ambiguity. There are a lot of changes going on in the structure and in the process. There are conflicts to be taken care of, within the team and outside the team. And there are some times where deadlines are not met. In this kind of situation it is really hard to keep the balance between executing faster and keeping the team happy. So what I've done is try to implement a lot of the learnings that I've had in my career to manage these kinds of situations, and that is what I will be talking to you about today.

[00:03:00] The first thing is there is a lot of ambiguity in such projects. There is not a lot of process defined; there is no structure. I also work with teams that come from a traditional project setting, because it's a bigger company. So the first thing that I always try to do is tell them about the business context, or the impact that the work they are doing has on the business. This helps them in two ways. One, it helps them get a wider picture of the work that they're doing, and it helps them grow as individuals. Second, whenever they're faced with multiple options to make their work progress, they will start thinking about it from the perspective of the business rather than their own work.

[00:03:50] The second thing I do is go one level deeper and try to understand what really ticks them as individuals, and I try to give them a sense of how this project will help them in their career: whether it will help them progress, whether it will help them upskill, whether it will give them more visibility, because it's a new project. This gives them a sense of progression in an environment of ambiguity.

[00:04:20] The third thing, which I think is the most important thing to do in such situations, is to set expectations of uncertainty. What this does is, whenever there is a roadblock, which is very common in such projects, the team will not get overwhelmed. They will be expecting uncertainty. So with these three things, the team sets off at the get-go with a sense of optimism, because they'll start thinking: yes, I'm doing something that really helps the business, I'm learning new things, and I'm going on an adventure where I will be dealing with things that I've not dealt with before.

Explaining the rationale for rapid changes

[00:05:03] The second thing that happens in such projects is there will be a lot of rapid changes. Every time there is a new game or a new phase starting, we will always take the learnings of the previous phase and ensure that the same thing does not happen again. Earlier, when I started off as a PM, I always used to think that teams would understand why these changes are happening, or they would just go with the flow. But over a period of time I realized that they just get confused if they are not given the proper context, and they lose their direction.

[00:05:42] So what I do right now is, after every phase or after every game, I have a talk with the team. I try to understand what their challenges are, and whenever I propose changes, I ensure that the changes I propose are always mapped to the challenges that they face, as much as possible, and I try to explain the rationale for why they are happening. This again helps build a feedback loop, where they understand the rationale, and also, if they have a better solution, they can propose it. This gives them a sense of clarity as to why things are happening the way they are.

Handling conflict by asking why

[00:06:23] Again, in such situations conflicts are natural. One of the examples that I have: as game teams we tend to work with a lot of artists, and artists are very creative. The thing that they want to do is build the best world that they possibly can, whereas the business always has a view on what kind of art concepts are currently working in the market. So there is a tussle that keeps going on, always.

[00:06:52] This is where I implement a learning that I had early on in my career. One of my managers, whenever I had an opposing point of view, would always ask me why. He would never stop there; he would drill down until he understood my thought process. If my thought process was right, he would adapt his approach. If it was not, he would explain to me why things are not the way I want them to be. What this did for me was, over a period of time, I started thinking those things myself, and I started automatically aligning with the project. That's why I think it is one of the most important things that I always have to do with my team.

[00:07:33] The other thing that I make sure to do in these kinds of situations is remind myself and my team what the common goal is. For example, in my situation the common goal is to release fast. So whenever there are opposing viewpoints, I ensure that whatever viewpoint aligns with the common goal is the one that we as a team pick.

When deadlines are missed

[00:07:58] The last thing is that in such situations it is natural that deadlines are not met. Earlier, whenever deadlines were not met, I used to go into a frenzy, or an analysis paralysis state, where I would always think: why did this happen, who is responsible for it, what could have been done better, and things like that. But over a period of time I realized that in new projects, deadlines will not be met 100%, because deadlines are a direct function of estimates, and estimates cannot be given accurately when there is a lack of information.

[00:08:35] So when deadlines are not met, the first thing that I do is always ensure I say "we" instead of "you" or "I." I say things like, "We could have done this better," "We could probably do this better next time," because this puts the responsibility on the team and not on a single person, and this is really important to keep their motivation levels up in bad situations. The second thing that I do is work with my team to solve the P0 bottlenecks, things that are affecting time, and not pick anything and everything. Whatever I pick, I ensure that the process itself doesn't become a bottleneck; if not, we can probably live with it rather than solving it.

[00:09:24] The other thing that I do is always keep track of the actual deadline and the target deadline, and whether the gap is closing across phases. As long as that is happening, there is a sense of progress, and there will be a time when we will definitely meet the deadlines.

Team alignment as the key to project success

[00:09:43] In a nutshell, these are the learnings that I implement across different scenarios: where there is ambiguity, where there are a lot of changes, where there is conflict in the team, and when deadlines are not met. As PMs we are in a unique situation where we have to influence our team without authority, and I hope that some of the things I said resonated with some of you who are listening.

[00:10:13] I want to end this talk with an image that I always keep in my mind. Imagine that the big arrow is the project and the smaller arrows are the team members. I always believe that a project can only go forward when everybody in the team is also moving in the same direction. Otherwise, even if they are putting a hundred percent of their effort in, but in their own direction, the project will go nowhere. That is why I believe that the number one thing for a project's success is team alignment, and that's why this topic is really close to my heart. Thank you for listening to me, and feel free to reach out, either via email or LinkedIn, and I'll be happy to answer your questions.