0:05 Hi everyone, it's me Tim. Today I'm
0:07 going to talk about running meetings,
0:08 something I know you all love.
0:10 Everyone's always telling me, Tim, I
0:12 love meetings. Talk more about them.
0:13 Actually, I know you don't like
0:15 meetings, but I was having lunch with a
0:17 friend of mine who's also in the game
0:21 industry in a very different role
0:25 than I have. And I mentioned to her that
0:28 last week I was in a meeting and I got
0:30 called out for not talking at all. We
0:31 got to the end of the meeting. It was
0:32 almost an hour long and somebody said,
0:34 "Well, Tim, you've been quiet. You
0:35 haven't said anything. What do you
0:37 think?" And I even said, my answer was,
0:38 "Well, this is the first time I've been
0:40 to this meeting that you guys have been
0:41 having for a few months now. I just
0:43 wanted to listen."
0:46 She said she had the opposite experience where
0:48 where
0:50 she was in a meeting that someone else
0:52 was running. Her boss was running it and
0:54 she knew her boss and several people on
0:56 the team had a specific problem that was
0:58 occurring. But they were getting near
1:00 the end of the meeting and no one had
1:02 brought it up. So she was like, I guess
1:04 I need to talk about this because she
1:06 didn't want it to go another week
1:08 because it was getting worse every week.
1:10 And we were talking about how people
1:11 don't like meetings. And I know you guys
1:12 have said meetings are terrible and
1:15 they're dumb and I have a whole video on
1:16 why I think conversation is important
1:20 and I'll link it below. And
1:23 if you feel like meetings are dumb, go
1:24 leave comments in that one cuz I'm just
1:26 going to assume here going forward that
1:28 meetings are important because they are.
1:32 Now, can they be wrongly used? Yes. Can
1:35 they be can they occur too frequently?
1:38 Yes. Every tool can be wrongly used and
1:40 used too much. So meetings are no
1:44 different in that regard. But I had do
1:46 have another video on brainstorming
1:48 meetings and that's a very specific kind
1:51 of meeting with specific kind of rules
1:53 and how it should be run. So I have a
1:55 video on that. Right now I just want to
1:57 talk about general meetings. Meetings
1:59 where you call some people together to
2:03 talk about something. And if you plan to
2:07 become a director or lead in any role,
2:08 these kind of meetings are going to be
2:10 expected of you. You will eventually be
2:12 called upon to run these. So that's why
2:14 I wanted to give this because some of
2:15 you are like, "No, I'm never going to
2:17 run those." And I'm like, "Okay, you're
2:21 going to be a very unusual lead and
2:23 possibly a very ineffectual lead." But
2:25 let's talk about meeting types. I think
2:26 there are three big kinds of meeting
2:29 types that I have in the game industry.
2:31 There are different types but they also
2:32 correlate with the size. The first one
2:34 is informational meetings. These are
2:37 usually big group meetings like the
2:39 entire team or maybe even the entire
2:40 company which means these meetings
2:43 sometimes can have a 100, 200, a
2:45 thousand people in them. Sometimes
2:47 they're in person and we'd have them in
2:50 big, you know, auditoriums um at
2:51 Interplay. We used to go outside so
2:53 everybody would be on the first and
2:54 second floor balconies and somebody
2:56 would be talking to us from the first
2:59 floor. Now, it's all done in in Teams or
3:02 Zoom or something like that. But these
3:04 big meetings are usually because
3:06 some information has to be given to the
3:09 team and they want to do it all at once.
3:11 You know, hey, we just shipped this game
3:13 or hey, the reviews are coming in or
3:15 hey, we kicked off a new project or
3:17 whatever. Whatever you want the whole
3:18 team to hear and you want to hear it
3:19 from the same person at the same time.
3:21 These meetings tend to be very short and
3:24 very focused. There is discussion, but
3:27 it's usually relegated to a Q&A at the
3:30 end of the information block.
3:32 Contrast this with directional meetings,
3:34 which are smaller groups, usually run by
3:37 a director, could be a lead, sometimes
3:39 senior, and it involves the director
3:43 talking to the producers or the leads.
3:45 And this tends to be a longer meeting.
3:47 And again, information tends to be
3:49 flowing down, but there's a lot more
3:51 questions being answered during the
3:52 meeting because these are all your
3:53 leads. And you're usually telling them
3:55 stuff. And this is why I call it
3:57 directional. Usually saying, "Hey, you
3:58 know, in this game, we're really trying
4:00 to, you know, let the player have a lot
4:02 of agency. So, I'm starting to know
4:04 railroading and level design or
4:06 railroading and dialogues. We've got to
4:08 stay on f we got to stay on track.
4:09 Focus." It's not something you're not
4:10 pulling one person out and going,
4:13 "You're doing something in or someone's
4:14 doing something wrong in your your
4:16 group." It's a director saying, "Hey, I
4:18 see things not going the direction I
4:20 want them to go, the direction that our
4:22 pillars imply we should go." Those are
4:25 those tend to happen
4:28 every week or two. Um, and then there's
4:30 actionable meetings. These are sometimes
4:32 called strike team meetings. This is the
4:33 smallest group. I've seen a strike team
4:36 of two people you could have. In
4:37 general, strike teams are like five to
4:39 seven people. It's whatever fits
4:41 comfortably in a small conference room.
4:44 It's very focused. conf strike teams
4:47 might meet two or three times a week if
4:48 they need to because they're usually
4:50 implementing a particular feature like
4:53 inventory might be a strike team or it
4:54 might be a small area on a map like
4:56 we're doing this dungeon or or we're
4:59 doing this town and there's a strike
5:00 team to do it. So it's a mix of a
5:02 programmer, an artist, a level designer,
5:04 a narrative designer. Sound will come to
5:06 strike teams and they all they're all
5:08 working on just this one particular
5:10 narrow feature in the game. They need to
5:12 have these meetings because they all
5:15 need to be on the same page constantly.
5:16 The slightest divergence because they're
5:18 working so quickly and so specifically.
5:20 Anybody goes off and does something for
5:22 a week or two and then comes back, that
5:25 may be a week or two lost.
5:27 For all of these meetings, all of them,
5:28 whether it's a giantformational meeting
5:30 or a directional meeting or an action
5:32 meeting, you should have an agenda.
5:33 Whoever's running it should have an
5:35 agenda. And I mean that. I mean have a
5:37 list of things you want to go over in
5:40 that meeting. If you don't have it, many
5:42 people in the group are going to say,
5:44 "God, you were just rambling." But if
5:46 you do have it, still expect some people
5:47 in the group to go, "That was a very
5:49 controlling meeting. You you know, we
5:50 were we were doing good stuff and you
5:52 you we started talking about this and
5:54 you moved us over here." And that's because
5:56 because
5:57 if if you have to choose between being
5:59 called rambling and controlling, choose
6:03 controlling. Rambling is always bad. So
6:05 have a list of things you want to go
6:07 over. That's how I do these videos. I
6:09 have a list of topics I want to make
6:12 sure I cover. You don't have to have a
6:13 script. You don't have to write down
6:15 everything you want to say to people in
6:16 a meeting, but you should have an idea
6:18 of the topics you're going to cover.
6:21 That alone will get you through 90% of
6:23 any of the informational or directional
6:24 meetings and a lot of the action
6:26 meetings. So, now I want to talk more in
6:28 detail about action meetings and strike
6:31 teams or whatever your your company
6:33 calls it because I think there are
6:35 things you need to do in that that you
6:37 may not do in the bigger meetings. The
6:40 first one is if you see something you
6:42 don't like, say something. Don't let
6:46 things slide for weeks or months. You
6:48 don't even have to say that's wrong. I
6:51 hate it. This is stupid. Which, judging
6:53 from the comments, many of you tend to
6:55 do. Instead, the best way I found to
6:56 handle this is just go, I don't
6:59 understand this.
7:00 I don't understand this dialogue. I
7:02 don't understand this character. I don't
7:03 understand this creature. I don't
7:05 understand this city layout. and then
7:07 explain what's causing an issue for you.
7:08 Like be specific. That's what these
7:11 actionable meetings are for. I've heard
7:13 a phrase compliment publicly, critique
7:18 privately, which I think doesn't extend
7:19 to this. I mean, you can critique how
7:21 something's coming together in an action
7:24 meeting. But I think what what they mean
7:26 by that is if you really like some
7:28 particular person's work, call them out
7:30 in an action meeting or even a
7:32 information or directional meeting. But
7:33 if you're having specific problems with
7:35 somebody, that's where you sit down with
7:37 them privately and go, "Look, you're not
7:38 doing this or you're not doing this well
7:39 or you're not doing this right or you're
7:42 not doing this on time." However, you
7:44 still should address things, especially
7:47 in action meetings, that you don't want
7:49 people to do or that you don't want to
7:51 have done moving forward. Otherwise, you
7:54 end up wasting so much time. I've seen
7:57 people out of wanting to be kind or
8:02 pleasant let a game go off the rails and burn
8:03 burn
8:05 all because they didn't want to be
8:07 unkind to someone. And I'm like, okay,
8:09 that's going too far. That's the
8:11 pendulum swinging too far in the other
8:13 direction. If you see something going in
8:14 that isn't right, or even if you see a
8:16 feature going in that isn't fun, you
8:19 need to say something because if you
8:21 wait 6 months, you just burn six months
8:25 of of time and money.
8:27 You should especially call out if work
8:29 was done incorrectly early on because
8:32 course correction is easier early or if
8:34 work is entirely missing. And I know
8:35 some people are like, "Well, no, you
8:36 shouldn't call it out. It shouldn't be
8:39 done." Here's the problem. Especially in
8:41 small meetings like that, because you're
8:44 so focused, everybody probably can tell.
8:45 Like, let's say some creature was
8:46 supposed to be done and then you have
8:48 the weekly meeting and you don't even
8:50 bring it up and it's not in the game.
8:52 Those people are going to be really
8:53 worried. Is Tim not noticing this
8:55 creature isn't done? Is something going
8:57 on that we should know about?
9:00 Just saying, "Hey, this creature wasn't
9:03 finished this week. Um, stuff got behind
9:04 on the creature queue. We're aware of
9:06 it. We're going to have the creature
9:07 done next week." and then you can move
9:10 on. But just ignoring it makes people
9:11 nervous and you almost always know
9:13 they're going to come up with some worse
9:16 idea in their head of what's going on.
9:18 The other thing that's cool for small
9:19 actionable meetings is this is the time
9:22 where people ask questions a lot often
9:23 during the meeting and you should
9:25 encourage that. You should even ask
9:26 people for feedback like what happened
9:30 in that meeting I was in. Because if
9:31 people come to these meetings regularly,
9:33 the small actionable meetings, and they
9:37 never talk, why are they there? And this
9:38 is something I said in the brainstorm
9:39 meeting. If you're coming to a small
9:41 strike team meeting and you never talk
9:44 or ask questions or are discussing what
9:46 you got done, you don't need to be
9:47 there. You could be sent a video of the
9:49 meeting. You could be sent a summary of
9:52 the meeting. and and that would let less
9:54 people would be at the meeting because
9:55 the more people are at the meeting, the
9:59 more chance it derails, the more p talk
10:02 past each other that can happen. You
10:03 want the meeting to be small and tight
10:04 as possible. So if you have people
10:06 coming who never talk, they don't need
10:08 to be at those meetings. They can still
10:10 be at the other meetings because usually
10:13 it's not as back and forth as the strike
10:16 teams are. But
10:17 the other thing, the last thing I want
10:18 to talk about is a lot of people don't
10:20 want to run these meetings. Forget the
10:21 people who don't like meetings, which I
10:23 know is a lot of you. Some of them don't
10:25 want to run these meetings. And I will
10:28 tell you, the ones who often very
10:31 voseiferously want to run meetings,
10:32 those are the ones you don't want
10:33 running meetings. Those are the scary
10:36 people. It's like in politics, the
10:37 people who want to run are frequently
10:39 the people you don't want running. And
10:40 then you see someone, you're like, why
10:41 aren't you running? I don't want to do
10:43 that, but you'd be good at that. The
10:45 best directors I've ever worked with and
10:48 the best leads for that matter have been
10:49 people who are very passionate but
10:51 reluctant to be in those positions.
10:53 Those are the best people to get because
10:54 those are the people, you know, who
10:56 aren't going to let the power go to
11:00 their head, go crazy, um, or just try to
11:02 always prove themselves right because
11:04 they don't even necessarily want to be
11:05 in that role, but they're good at that
11:07 role. Those are the people you want.
11:09 people who are good at a role that they
11:11 don't necessarily demand that they be
11:13 in. Those are good those are good people
11:15 to run meetings to. In fact, I often
11:17 find producers run meetings very well
11:18 because they're really good at keeping
11:20 lists and having an agenda and keeping
11:22 on tab of what everyone's going on and
11:23 and asking tough questions. So,
11:26 frequently having a producer or an
11:27 assistant producer run a strike team
11:30 meeting is a good way to go. But anyway,
11:31 I did want to talk about this because I
11:33 think a lot of you think meetings
11:35 shouldn't happen and I think that I can
11:38 think of projects that have derailed
11:40 because of that attitude. So, I think
11:41 meetings should be run but they should
11:44 be run well and I hope this gives you an
