very special guest today on the producer Playbook we need to understand difference between mentoring and coaching producers sometimes they mix in

them up they just tell people what to do even though this could be not the right solution why is there a danger in doing

that cuz then you’re treating the person as we call it parent child relationship because you tell them okay you go go and

do this you didn’t trust the person they able to do it what’s the purpose of the stand up is it to update what I’ve done

yesterday what I’m going to do today or is it just what blocking me what challenges do I have by visualizing how

the transitions work in reality put it on your board status update is not really required because I can go and take a look okay Harry working on this

ticket and Harry is waiting for this one to be done so what you try to do in the standup is to make sure that no one is

blown what happens sometimes when you work with technical people they love to speak technology and when they speak

technology they speak technology for so long how do you do this if I get the answer I’ll be very happy

so welcome everyone very special guest today on the producer Playbook

Ali hey man how are you doing hey man good yeah how have you been how has the snow been it’s very nice and snow man I

I love it I love it when it’s I love Darkness snow and tax agency in Sweden

yeah I mean to be honest they are nice people they just take half of our money uh they’re straightforward so I love

them take off the money but at least you have some very nice transport true there you go not that nice but yeah not too

bad so today we have a producer playbook for you all so it is going to be story

from Ali’s past and also everything that would help other producers and aspiring producers to get through their career so

my first question is what is a producer uh producer different between different

companies even though it’s like Europe Japan it’s even different between departments so I have multiple teams I

feel like I’m doing different jobs at different teams which is good good good or bad actually that’s the reality

different teams have different needs different teams are have different maturity different complexity of the

product they’re building so the producer needs to be what that team needs to

deliver more effectively so they adapt exactly so some teams just need you to

be more Hands-On just like really day-to-day knowing what’s going on some te they have this seniority so they can

do this themselves they want you to go out and do the more strategic and the

communications and it’s a bit difficult to frame it in a place of okay so is a producer a project manager is a producer

a product manager is it uh product owner is it in between I definitely see it as

in between and the ratio how much is going to be project manager product owner or man like or

manager it just depends on the team’s needs but there’s one mission for producer needs to be there always is how

can I maximize the outcome of the of the team that producing without the team need to put more work or time in it and

how we can do that how can I make a team let’s say there’s a team without a producer they’re producing this amount

of uh whatever if it’s Code art whatever then I bring a producer that I’m expecting that amount of uh outcome how

is that possible because the producer needs to bring priority and focus and

Clarity so the team knows what they should be doing next and the producers do all this behind behind the SC

communication so they always know what’s next what’s the priority what things they should be focusing on what things

they should right now and focus on something more important so that’s how I see producer role okay it was a long

answer but to be honest it’s like the only way to explain this complexity about the the understanding of the role

because according to my family I just play games and they pay me well yeah because it’s really hard to explain what

we do yeah that’s why from a producer like I want to turn this into the

viewers perspective here if I’m looking to Mentor someone or

even apply this advice to myself like what do producers get get wrong when they try to kind of help someone else

become more productive really good question um as a producer you have we need to understand

difference between mentoring and coaching what’s the difference perfect mentoring is I I you come to me hey Ali

I have this I want to be organized same same and I do actually want to then I say if

I’m mentoring you I say hey man use my formula to do is for capturing notes use notion for your documentation use this

for that then I’ve just told you what you need like a prescription yeah just I just told you what you need to do we can do the same at work hey I’m not sure how

to facilitate this I’m not sure how to give this feedback you tell them how to do it or if they have a problem how you

just give them how to solve it but then you have coaching coaching is trusting the person

they are able to figure it out and of course I’m not saying

sometimes we need to be mentors sometimes we need to be coaches but some what what the producers does they

sometimes they mixing them up they just tell people what to do even though this could be not the right solution why is there a danger in doing

that perfect because then you’re treating the person as we call it parent child relationship because you tell them

okay you go go and do this you didn’t trust the person they are able to do it well instead guide the person how to do

it so for example ask them okay how can I help you today so they come with a problem then I say I see and what you

going to do about it next they say I’m not sure maybe I’m going to do and that oh interesting so you’re going to try this yeah yeah maybe I should you will

find out they start to solve their problem bys how often does that happen I wonder if it’s like most times it it’s

actually 90% if you’re speaking to an adult they’re able to figure it out you just need to do the right way just

listen to them just guide them and you know how I’m going to tell you that one

trick so you can know am I doing a good job or not like absolutely one trick if

you’re doing the coaching if someone comes to you hey harry I want to do a podcast what to do then you want to

coach that person instead of uh of course if not person if not asking for technical questions that’s a different

story but ask you where to start you need to coach that person if your brain

is thinking as that person is talking they’re not coaching that’s actually good cuz I was thinking all right what

would I ask that person and it’s usually like okay why would you start a podcast it’s a low mental energy question for

them it’s a what so so exactly what you need do you need to let them think throw

the ball at them every time and usually big open questions is like like okay why are you doing a podcast okay why is that

why are you driving yourself to do that exactly then they usually so what will happen you see that person doing actually I don’t know like or

maybe or then they will start figure out slowly so you just guide them through their feelings and they will figure out

and they will find out here’s the thing in a lot of the cases there’s an agenda

in you say please use this tool please do this thing no don’t do that please

don’t why not if I’m a producer and deep down I know my tool is going to help them why wouldn’t I want to do that

because who who said that you know your tools the best first second what works

for me might not work for that person third we need to start let people solve

this and treat them as an adult to adult relationship this will change the dynamic of things that will change your

relationship in my opinion if people start to uh you will feel trust in this because

I’m not doing much I’m just helping you in the end you will find it uh you will find the solution yourself and end up

and funny enough they will say thank you for helping me you actually just guided them yeah it’s funny how that happens

like I’ve done a bit of coaching and I have a tour which tells me how much of

the time I’m talking and sometimes I’m like 10 20% and then those people were like you helped me so much but a lot of

it they were working through and finding the answer just guiding them asking the question let them do the thinking so

when the producer know exactly when to utilize mentoring and coaching when speaking to the team and helping them

solve their problems this is a big plus for building relationship and make sure the team is maturing and producer is

we’re we’re not like we’re humans we have our flaws we have so our Solutions might be actually not the best at all

instead we should let the team uh or let the person find it and we just support them so if we’re looking at the ideal

producer now what traits would they have if you were like building a perfect producer see now I’m thinking like now

you’re doing this uh big questions first of all how making games is complex tools

are complex everything is complicated about making games if you never made a game I highly recommend just try to make

a small one in unity and you’ll understand what I’m talking about or any engine it’s actually complex it’s so

hard to to make games then producer needs to reduce that complexity and make it

more simplified for who for the team for the communications for everyone around and you can do that who said if things

are complicated we should complicate everything around it for example let’s say I have uh my teams and my teams work

on different packages or different deliveries and those deliveries needs to have a milestones and documentations

okay instead of high up coming to me or directors hey where are you with this where what about that we made a kind of

dashboard for them so they see every delivery in timeline and status on top

of it they need more information they can click on it so always try to package

your information in a simplified high level way and give people as much as they want by clicking more see more you

can go all the way to go very technical so trait one simplifying complexity simplifying complexity that’s the first

and I like the point I just want to mention like you made it real time you avoided the communication like 100%

imagine how much that adds up in a studio which is really ties to my second point which is communication right how

can I reduce Communications and back and forth by making the information

available but we took it next level at Star St with my teams my teams don’t need to ask me about priority at all

never which is a lot of cases priority is that common in gaming studio it’s very common it’s like when you got two

issues at once uh which one I should pick first and you saying you solved that St stable uh we solve that to a

certain level unless if it’s uh two different issues in live they don’t belong to any package I’m curious how

did you do that how we do that very simple back to simplify so we use jira I believe most likely most of the more of

the cities are using jira J is a jir is the project management tool where you can manage your uh backlog all the

tickets all the packages and uh across the the company with each team have

their own board and project and you can link tickets together cor so in J

there’s something called timeline timeline I haven’t seen it utilized in many companies they’re just like it’s

laying around it’s like a feature that doesn’t get the love exactly in Timeline you can place your epex epex is let’s

say epic is a collection of tickets when they are done the feature is done and could it could vary in complexity and

size depends on the feature the company the team size what we do we put every

epic as a delivery or feature and we put it on a timeline and in Timeline it’s a list so

you cannot have two t two epics as a prior one so it has to be 1 2 3 four

five and this is the best way to have priority if you have everything is prior

one then nothing is important and also even if it’s obvious it’s still mental energy that someone has to use where

like I have this daily I have a to-do list and they categorize as high medium

or low exactly but then if I have two at high then then I’m having to use Mental energy 100% but in our case it’s 1 2 3 4

5 six you’re not thinking you’re not thinking so you got two two tickets from outside is it you you can look at the

epex and say okay this is one this is two then you know which one is more important how do you spell epics I’m just sorry how do you spell the word

epics epic like epic like EP EP epic epic games okay I haven’t heard the word

that I haven’t heard that word before yeah epic is just a collection of task or stories cool U so we use that so the

epex will be in in the list then if you got two uh items belong to different

epex you can go there and check what priority looks like and we can make it Dynamic so for any reason I got a new

input from the director saying okay we believe this project we need to pump it in

priority that’s it so I Chang it for my team so my team can always go and check for that we also did something very cool

that we have a massive backlog like a lot of companies so we start to use labeling system so I want my team to

don’t go to the backlog and find hundreds of tickets laying around they just apply it and now label and they see

way fewer tickets in a priority order nice so I told the team if you out of

work in the board go to the backlog apply this label and you it’s ready for you yes you’re reducing the overwhelm of

like 100 tickets like you have like three or five on 100% I’m reducing the

uh the need for them to talk to me and asking me I’m done now what should I do

next they know what to do next yeah so reducing the amount of communication by making things clear don’t be afraid of

communicating don’t be afraid of setting up a meeting we set up a meeting to discuss a ticket or a situation whatever

but if you can reduce that by making things clear this is how the right steps of being a good communicator internally

and how you present your information to the externals so producer we have simplifying complexity good

communication would you add anything else yes this is this is going to be an interesting one because it differs

between companies but if you one of the people who drive the vision of the what you’re building I

always say that we are Time Travelers okay your producer what okay this

podcast is over expl Ali is drunk just drinking water okay so I’m going to

explain and you’re going to like it and if you don’t like it wait if you don’t like it I’m going to actually leave all right or you can leave I’ll be honest

you’ll be I’ll be honest let time travel analogy is good I hope I can explain it

in a good way okay when you take a decision or a vision it’s it’s something

we needs to be done in the future with strategy based on something happening in the past on data or discussions you need

to be that person you need to have that agility to go to the Future see the

vision come back and explain to your team and a strategy how it’s going to feel how it’s going to look like and you

have done all of that Based on data you have all older discussions or inputs

from people you have done in the last year last few months last weeks you are doing all of that in one day so the

workflow here is director gives you a vision and you’re saying you’re then going in the future PL it out what it

would look like from a production perspective and then coming back to like okay this is how it’s going to feel exactly it’s going to feel good but then

here are the things we need to do and the possible problems and then you’re making that Visual and you do that based

on things you have done in the past mistakes in terms of complexity have you done something similar is it the first

time you need to look at the past anyway and sometimes you need you might be the one driving that vision from scratch

prous yes yeah and that’s why it’s different between companies in my case I have that with my teams we can we have

the freedom to to to suggest things that align with long-term vision we will

present it to directors and if they green light it then we Gallop it to the road map when it comes to this long-term

Vision in the short term I feel like I’ve had a few conversations where

it ends up being where it feels like everything’s going quarter to quarter and you mentioned long-term Vision there

and I feel like the balance of the longterm and the shortterm is in essence a producers job

what mistake I love the framing of this question cuz you usually tell me the biggest one that’s going to be the

mistake so like what’s the biggest mistake a producer makes balancing the longterm with the shortterm man you

should be a producer I’m not exaggerating like this is this is seriously a really great point I even forgot to mention like balancing not

only short and long term there there I’m going to go even one level deeper is

maintenance technical depth so got talk on this I have a full talk about technical depth now I fixed my seat

because now I’m excited so so hear me out so we took look if you’re a gaming

company don’t tell me that you never took a like a you didn’t cut a corner you did I’m looking at them right now we

we all do come on we all do seriously we all do we cut corners but then we need

to fix them ASAP right so we have technical depth we have cutting Corners we have code is old we have content is

old need to be revamped if you don’t it will bite you back it you will pay the price but then you have things new

things coming then Shin objects shiny objects then you have them short and long term okay what you

do now how can I find the balance and this is definitely a producer job 100%

look if you’re a producer there’s no way no way anyone will come to you and say you know what I believe we should spend

half a year refactoring this feature or remaking it it will never happen they

were always coming with the shiny objects a new uh new features flashy

Graphics High Fidelity whatever monetization Revenue stream 100% it’s a business after all but they don’t do

that but producer with the right mindset and understanding of the importance of balancing will fight for this kind of

things and this a lot of techniques you can do that we we can come to that if we have time but for now finding the right

balance how can I keep maintaining the code base how can I respond to the like

the live issues or on on like it needs to be fixed today shortterm long term

and there’s multiple techniques you can do that I’m going to start with the simplest one we figure out the recipe

the recipe for one of my teams we decided you know what every planning we’re going to have at least one

maintenance no question at least one at least one request from a user that they

needed now or soon and majority of the items will be short and longer

term split half in half and if you have any crashes always VIP goes to the we

cannot live with crashes internally or externally So when you say one you mean a ticket a ticket now now see now now

you’re a producer speaking ticket and you have multiple tickets it’s an epic okay so that’s how it works exactly so

when you have that recipe that means that we are always do some good maintenance we always make sure the

internal user or external user happy we’re working we’re Focus focusing what matters which is the long mid and

longterm projects this is in your context where it’s a weekly Sprint know

two weeks Sprint two week Sprint but you have a weekly update we have weekly update true it’s just you make them in

two week batches I guess that’s really like I said you should be a producer so it’s good to know about Star Stable that

see now now the reason I’m asking is I’m thinking other companies they might not they might have a three Monon thing so

they can easily they come in 3 months later like oh my God we have all this stuff we haven’t touched I see I I like

so you’re really paying attention to the the Cadence in here so we do code goes every like bi-weekly

content goes every week so when it’s content we can be relaxing so because

it’s we call it optic only we trigger new content from uh from the content side for us we only do bi-weekly engine

release so that’s why we it’s designed this way so that’s we we need and in

production we few weeks ahead live so what we’re doing today depends on the of

course when we Branch it will go out to live in a few weeks okay so we always have this buffer time to allow internal

people to to do the testing but back to this like to the balancing point you can

do that when the planning find the recipe find what works for your team this is one way of doing it second uh you you split in team not in a

bad way split them or make them like a make a core team’s Focus you always have people in your team who loves working on

maintenance stuff they enjoy quality if you have them please raise their salaries it’s like you don’t want to you

don’t want to lose them I found out about this ages ago so I used to play

RuneScape a lot and there was always a lot of stuff that were broken but they were never prioritized so they released

a team called the ninja team and the only things they did was backlog quality of life and every week the ninja team

had their own blog and I was just like how sick is this and now that I realized

because it is kind of the non-shiny work but it needs to get done and you have people passionate about this trust me

and this is uh I like that how the qualities of producers are coming as we are talking so we said simplifying

complexity communication find the balance of things understand your team and what they’re passionate about yeah I

can imagine how many companies now have someone who could be on maintenance but isn’t and the other way around yes just

understand what they are passionate about and try to allocate them around the area as close as possible look

sometimes you cannot do this sometimes let’s say no one wants to touch something someone needs to at the end of

the day but when it’s possible why not when it’s possible to assign it to something we need to do I don’t see why

not so we start to do that we start to understand some of the people would like to work on more like Cutting Edge more

fancy technology while some of them want to refactor all code right unit testing where does this come out the desired is

that something you do regular to check I I like this you can’t just go there and ask them would do you like to work on I

mean you might some of them they have the clarity and here’s also something you seriously should consider being

producer I made a joke of one podcast is like if I ever had to get a job in games you would be producer because you’re

asking good question seriously now it’s not something you can have in one session or one to one it’s accumulation

knowledge yeah it’s not like a survey drop down box 100% so first of all you start to see that person they pick C

type of tickets so okay I see that person mainly picking this kind of tickets uh some of them they got stuck

longer in some some ticket but they go faster in some so you understand what excites them so this is this is this is

something uh we we we can um like we take learning from retrospectives I love

retrospective it’s your tool to understand your team what first trade them what things they really want what

things they don’t want or something and when you plan your uh future your team

will start suggest some items you’ll fight you will find some of them fighting for we should have this really

fancy feature while some of them we say we should never touch that anything in that code base until we refactor the

whole of it so you see different requests different ideas then you have a

more the pictures start to be like full in front of you what that person would love to focus on so this is how I do it

just pay attention to your uh the team what they’re saying what they’re doing and that’s why also the

stand-ups is important how often do you do standups daily no question do you think everyone should do that everyone

like I would say yes why because it’s very short like it’s 15 minutes I’ve

been recruiting for some teams where it says they’re 15 minutes but then I speak to the contractor and then like it

always goes over oh no no no no never in my in our case I’ve seen you one meeting

agenda no no seriously uh our meetings is very very sharp and in some cases we

have a lot to discuss it’s just like to I’m talking about seriously 2 minutes maximum above the that’s it 2 minutes

above actually this is a good opportunity to ask how do you keep a meeting to stick

to that meeting length cuz I know you’re very good at this but this is not a common skill like how do you make sure

that the meeting finishes after 15 minutes I like this if I’m talking about standup there’s two techniques if you

have a normal meetings let’s do both so stand up what do we do perfect stand up is first of all what’s the purpose of

the standup is it to update what I’ve done yesterday what I’m going to do today or is it just what blocking me

what challenges do I have the first one could be just a message right yeah just like as in that doesn’t need to be a

standup in from my perspective yeah so just like or be there because someone might need you but what if you have

nothing just say I’m all good it’s like I’m not blocked in one my team we sto do status update like because you can see

the tiet yeah because you can see the ticket assigned to that person I started stopping that so I had a

weekly basically stand up but then we changed it to every day tell me um what

I did yesterday what I’m doing today what I need from you and then he saves time I save time so the status update

for my understanding doesn’t need to be a stand up but surprisingly at least when I was a recruiter about a year and

a half ago still a case in big companies yeah and and it’s just all about status update but then this ties to either than

their board is hard to to read because in our case if if if you see my board

right now if you go to Stars table right now and I show you the board you know exactly who’s working on what a z board

the jir board you know exactly who is working on what custom build no just like use just make sure that everyone is

assigned what are people getting wrong why is it complex I love this so jir board comes with default template to do

which is no one is picked up the ticket then you you put it in progress then uh

testing then done I believe that’s the default template I’m imagine a trailer board now but trailer board just let’s

let’s yeah just combine style you pick to do you do progress then you put it in

testing then it’s done but we have waiting for review you who’s going to

review your ticket for example then we added waiting for

review your your board should mirror

the reality in terms of the flow and I found out recently I had um I ghost WR

so I write a post it used to be idea draft um waiting for approval approved

now I have 15 stages CU there’s actually 15 things that need to happen then exactly and that has saved me and my

clients a lot of kind of just like you said exact visual complexx exactly so

don’t hide any transition in reality that is not on your board yes so for

example I’m going to give even extra we’re going a bit technical maybe here I’m not sure but if I think this is good section for the producers then we can

move on to the early career stuff perfect so let’s say we have we’re done review then you put in testing so you

move the ticket to testing if you if you if I invite you to my board then say Oh someone is testing this one but no one

is testing it because you you moved it in and no one pick it up yet so in

reality you’re waiting for someone to pick it up so we added a new column called it waiting for testing yeah

unless you’re going to have an automatic when it goes there dedicated to someone you need to make it clear

that no one so you make it on a parking lot we called waiting for testing then the embedded QA and the team will pick that ticket and put it and done so by

visualizing how the transitions work in reality put it on your board the board is easy to read always reflecting

reality as much as possible so status update is not really required because I can go and take a look and say okay

Harry working on this ticket and Harry is waiting for this one to be done so what you try to do in the standup is to

make sure that no one is blocked and what happens sometimes when you work with technical people they love

to speak technology and when they speak technology they speak technology for so long how do you do this I had this if I

get the answer I’ll be very happy so I’m a recruiter speaking to someone who’s technical yeah and they are explaining

something they did and I feel like I got everything I needed 10 seconds in but now we’re 1 minute in and I don’t know

how to say stop okay how we do it in stand up though that that’s more tricky because you’re having conversation one

to one with a person but stand up is stand up is what we do sometimes also

goes to how good you are as a producer sometimes you need let the conversation flow a bit because it’s important what

they’re doing and this could be solved in a 15 minutes standup rather than they

need to book a meeting that’s a very good point because you could save time by spending more time now yeah 100% so I

would rather to give them in the space but when I start to feel they start to go in solution mode and they start

arguing we should do that we should that guys I love this feel free to use the time left from the stand up if there’s

any time left or book a meeting outside this so you need to stop you need to say

guys I love I love this we need to continue this outside if you don’t do that it will drag the whole stand

up this is one solution the second one if they were discussing concern half of the team but the other half they are not

even because sometimes you have different like programmers how many people typically on a stand up it’s like

usually depends on the uh Team size like I have some teams like around uh six uh

sometimes like 10 nine it’s a lot of people yeah yeah yeah so let’s say half of them are C++ programmers have them

like a backend Python and if the discussion is about C++ and the kind of the no one is blocked and we did the

quick update okay guys feel free to drop from the meeting and we keep only the people concerned about the matter nice

so when you are efficient and are you blocked I’m all good I need nothing perfect and what also good about uh

standups you can ask questions you don’t usually get a chance to ask like guys why this being blocked for so for for

long oh because no one is reviewing it then we make sure that someone in the team reviewing that one so raising a

blockers or it’s good for the producer to see that this ticket being in in its place for so long then you ask the

person hey why this one is like you need of of course you asking a way to support them not the questioning he’s like why

this been here for long do you like do you need any support from me or anyone of them oh yeah like I feel like I’m stuck let’s say you don’t do stand-up

let’s say you do it weekly that person will be stuck the whole week because that person is new to the company shy to

ask for help or trying to challenge themsel in a way that is becoming ineffective yeah it’s like the thing of

always Google it yourself but if you spend a week Googling it when you could have asked someone there’s a line

there’s a line so for how how much I should push and try to find myself when when should I ask for help producer can

accelerate that enough like okay this been here for a few days how can we help you then I need help then we ask who can

help this person next person with this then a senior will raise their hand you make sure this kind of decision you do

in standup is so valuable insanely valuable you’re saving you’re unblocking someone from for could be hours or days

by just paying attention asking the right questions so when you’re efficient

when you save all technical discussion to be outside there’s no way on I would love invite me to the standup that will

take more than 15 if the if the size of the team is reasonable we always get sometimes like free time couple of

minutes in some teams depends on the size then and your stand up by asking

anything else this opens the any kind of

frustration or question or like are we having retro this week are we doing this uh should we cancel meeting because we

don’t have any topic so it’s also leave room for everyone to ask something could be not board related could be team

related I like that cuz it gives you the entire team a chance to like self-correct daily 100% which is always

keep you in the right course which is also so sometimes producer need to do really big communication big like

planning Vision sometimes it’s all about the small details yeah like though those doing the small details correctly makes

a good producer yeah it’s like someone gave an analogy on a podcast is if you have a NASCAR MH if you do one tweak

then you could crash so if a game’s in production like that one tweak if you do enough of those it could der the whole

project 100% And adjusting it with the with the with the with the wheel like as you’re saying is what we do in the

standups yeah that’s how we stay on the course and if you did it weekly then that’s a weekly feedback loop versus a daily feedback loop a lot better the

worst case you can lose a couple of hours if that person decide not to reach out in our uh discussion channels yeah

we have a deep question here potentially what’s the toughest decision you’ve ever made as a

producer that’s that’s a tough question

though oh yeah um yeah some you need to say no what happened you need to say no to

some projects you need to say no to some uh team members want to focus on something uh which is we call it killing

Your Darlings yeah gaming indry is seriously different and compared to a

lot of Industries like let’s say you work in um I I don’t want to name anything any

industry so because I have friends in all industry they want to like make people non gaming industry not gaming

IND let’s say you work on a product that product serve specific feature or

specific use case and you have a team of 15 then you will find that person really

really excited about this product so excited even though this product could be like just anything small the race is

just for them is a job it’s about the team the culture so it’s so rare to find

like everyone in the team insanely excited about what we’re building that’s the gaming industry yeah

so you have the issue reversed it’s like you and and and some team you need to motivate the team you need to do a lot

of effort to keep them excited in the gaming industry of course you keep you should keep trying to do that but it’s

it’s usually the opposite you to calm them down chill guys chill there’s a lot of ideas there a lot of excitement about

scoping about scaling about doing things sometimes you need to say no which is could be heartbreaking for them to see

their project won’t fly we need to down pry it but always explain why you said

no help it’s like you’re you’re facing rejection often it is it’s bit I can see

why that would hurt um if that’s the toughest decision my

question question here then the followup how do you make someone realize

that their idea although great can’t be done producer needs to have the ability

to zoom in have the small technical details or small details about the

product they’re building at the same time Click Boom now we’re zooming out holistic view same back to the past and

the future you need to be able to zoom in and out very quickly what happens that a lot of individual

contributors and our teams they’re so passionate about this feature they so love they want that feature to go in but

when you zoom out you you you see what’s coming in in the uh in the near future

long future you you have a more insights about what the direction of the company is heading you have understanding how

this will complicated some legal stuff so you know a lot about the surrounding that that member in your team is not

aware of it’s like they have context but you have so much more context and it’s not fair for them to expect you can’t

expect them to have the same context no it’s not their job it’s a full-time job to have that full context to be honest it’s a full-time job um I I know that

context because I am in meetings they are not in I’m meeting I’m actually I’m

I’m being there to be their eye and ears and shielding them from wasting their time yeah literally your job is to get

that context so my job is to be there hear it out see how it affects my team communicate it to my team Shield my team

from distraction do all this back and forth stuff so they don’t need to do it themselves and they just need to get it

okay we are doing this for this this and that and explaining what’s the best way to get them to see that is it more kind

of coaching versus mentoring rather than say hey we can’t because I said so is it more like a coaching side so we need to

coach to be open-minded for rejection that’s you can coach and be more accept of

things won’t fly for now mentoring or something just give the why we cannot do

it it’s just explaining by facts that uh we cannot do this because by the way you

have done that in 2017 you weren’t even around and resulted this and all the data we have show that this is not what

should be doing for this and this and that when you do this you cannot argue with this it’s like because it’s

something we have tried in work something is complicated or we have something way more important will bring

more revenue or more happiness to players so counter point what if I said

yeah Ali but that was seven years ago we could have new data now things

have changed perfect then then to to to make sure my here’s where it comes if you’re a good producer or I could say no

and let’s focus on this instead but if I feel it’s a good point and fair point I actually go and f that data for them

uhuh so I actually go to the dashboards and I try to fit it myself if possible or ask the data team to provide this

kind of information so I always try to back it up with something tangible but

let’s be honest sometimes the just the management says no it happens in every company like they say no because they

also have insight and then they sometimes they don’t need to explain or sometimes you cannot even explain and it’s technically expensive to explain if

it takes mental energy finding data but from my understanding there’s a balance here like you don’t want to shut people

down and wherever possible you give them the data 100% if if I always try to explain why it’s not possible and in

some camp companies you cannot even actually say why not I’m being honest because uh luckily not in our company

but I have friends in every big companies you have people who owns the company they’re the the owners and the board and they decide things and maybe

they said we’re we’re we’re downsizing the company next month so they know that okay half of the

workforce won’t be around and some of your team members asking for something nice to have and they you send it they

say no because they have Insight but they cannot tell you why not yeah okay then you need to go to your team member and say no we’re not doing doing it and

you don’t have enough information to to to give that’s tough that’s really tough but you need to here’s what need to be

acceptance to after all we work for a company and the company pays the

salaries I’m being honest right now sometimes we are this is the issue when you work in a creative space where people so passionate about what they’re

building it’s always a it’s always a dilemma like I have an idea I believe this or I I could be mistaken but I

believe my idea will change the game future and the players will

love my my idea but could be not the case to be honest or then I got no then

I got upset from the company because it’s they should have listened to me whatever this is uncommon in a lot of

companies it’s like you do this you do that it’s like you don’t have this a lot of creativity Freedom back and forth so

we try to give it as much as possible but sometimes you don’t have it it’s reality so we need to be open-minded to

try and give feedback back try with solution that even though we don’t like it and try to use channels to give

feedback that it’s not working flagging things and that’s why you see a lot of uh issues in a lot of products and games

because it’s due to something the team don’t want but being just forced to do anyway yeah and that’s the funny thing

like a job done doesn’t mean the same as it does in another thing like it’s not

just a feature the X like how does it feel so yeah difficult it’s difficult but after all it’s really tough like

some members have a good point but the after all the company who owns the uh the

product overall and paying the salary have Direction they want to go with and we did our best to give a feedback to

the channel and still they want to do it anyway it’s really tough but like if you ask me then you should try to do what

they want to do and if it’s not working start to give feedback and if they don’t listen yeah it’s not going to work

there’s no it’s it’s it’s reality I’m not going to sugar coating and say do

whatever no we can’t yeah it’s always about the circle of control concern I’m not sure if you know about it yeah we

have to focus on what we can control exactly like some sometimes we can control things in my team we can do it but if it’s outside it’s it’s really

outside yeah you can just be concerned about it but how much time you want to spend in concern versus control it’s

really up to you the energy goes to a black hole otherwise exactly just wasting your time and being concerned about things you cannot change so with

this context we’re in a situation where there are less jobs it’s hard to get in the industry

some might say it’s hard to stay hard to promote so I want to tackle these three aspects because you’ve had an

interesting Journey so in terms of breaking into the

industry i’ would love to understand like how did you break into the industry so good to know that I didn’t know

anyone in the gaming industry and my LinkedIn was very sh I didn’t even have a profile photo you know like I love the

so here are my stats I had no exactly knowing no one no connections on

LinkedIn and never been a studio in my life all right so with these three things how did you do it I start to be

obsessed with reading job ads okay seriously people don’t read job ads they just read what they believe the title

will will be what what year was this eight years ago okay so eight years ago you’re reading job ads yeah how did what

led to you getting your first job perfect so I start to read job ads

everything just read job ads title and what what so they look for years of experience and something then you start

to see a trend like all of them look for something like it’s it’s a skill they

look for you weren’t looking specifically for producer world if I no no no no no I started in QA uh kind of

lead and in Tech because that was my you just decided to join the games industry uh without deciding the title kind of

yes like it’s like what happened I was uh I have a master in computer engineering so I’m very technical

background and I was looking for jobs in Stockholm and it then I oh gaming industry wait you can work in the gaming

industry I’m not I’m not exaggerating I’ve been gamer my entire life but working in the gaming industry never

ever came across my mind wow like you need to man I love games you know I love games I play games every day I’ve been

playing games my entire life I’m obsessed with games but you never made the jump I didn’t even know that you can

work I was like oh games just fall from the sky I guess so when I saw wait you can work in the gaming industry I was

obsessed I was reading job ads every night every single night reading job ads

so that’s helped me to see what they’re looking for so they always look for knowledge in making games so I knew my

first step I need to build a game I need to learn how to build a game so I made half year game design course with my

full-time job so you took on a half a year game design course and I believe everyone should do everyone should know

how to build a game you don’t need to be a game designer you don’t need to go really deep but I get my hands dirty

with unity made couple of games in unreal small ones like not really

nothing crazy but now I know what game design document or gdd means I know what

how to make a game from ideation from like a blockout how to do like the mo up how did like a um like all the steps you

need until you polish the game and you step one you got that game design practicality was this before you started

applying oh yeah yeah wow so it took me four years this oh took me four years

but not only learning because I was doing like uh helping smaller studios in Indies to to do localization and testing

and some production wow so I think it’s important for people to understand like you were working full time full you did

not just say okay I’m going to join the games industry and it happened you build skills to then repair s to apply 100%

and how how I knew which skills to grow is from Reading job ads and understanding the trends yeah you reverse engineered it 100% reverse

engineering the job ads reading as much as possible because in the gaming industry we have different titles

there’s no way you would know let’s say your project manager you go gaming industry project manager you will find a

few but it’s if you’re produ like you could apply for a producer you can apply for a product uh or like there’s a

million name for this it’s the same it’s just like there’s a lot of overlap exactly so if you don’t know this how you know what to apply for reading also

highlight what skills you’re missing let’s say you are just started like you can learn whatever and just you you’re

ready to learn multiple things by reading job ads you will find that there’s a lot of companies looking for

that Ro why it’s like hard to find Graphics programmers build Engineers tools

programmers really hard to find by reading job ads you will start to see Trend then you know what to do if you

really want to go in and you have have the capacity to learn what that Ro would take then you can start learning I like

the advice because it’s also so timely if it worked eight years ago if you read the job ads eight years ago then maybe

you wouldn’t work but you’re reading today’s job ads so this is always relevant 100% if like AI wasn’t a big

thing in I mean always we had AI in games but to AI the new AI generative AI

which is we don’t like but a lot of AI specialization that now it’s start to appear so when you read a job ad you

always up to the trend and know what to do the next step is you will

find like a a skill that be you can transfer from your old job to to to

gaming industry already what did you transfer uh leadership because I used to be test lead and QA lead in uh in my

previous years so that that’s something and communication skills uh facilitation if you know how to facilitate communic

uh feedback there’s a lot of things you can carry with you it’s actually more than you expect actually have a full

post with Carousel how many things you can carry with you oh nice then things you don’t have by reading the job ads

reading about the gaming industry okay I don’t know how to make a game I don’t know game design I don’t know a lot of things so that’s how you decide what you

going to learn how how you can to fill that Gap yeah where to spend your time exactly so I did both of them now I’m

ready perfect I built couple of small games they look for experience how can

how can I build an experience if I am full-time job or they don’t have a job yet it’s the Catch 22 exactly I was I

was going to say exactly Catch 22 like what how to do that and here’s my biggest tip for everyone lost their job

or student it’s really sad time for students to have an internship because no one is looking to put time in this

because you know due to a lot of layoff we need to replicate the

experience I can have from the gaming industry I need to replicate it even though I don’t have a job do it how I’m

a student right now I finished I’m done I’m ready to do something I’m waiting for a company to hire me a lot of people

just wait they just wait for the opportunity to come and they wait for a

year or two they do something aside to pay the bills which is no shame in that we should all do that when needed but

then they been 2 years graduate from the school or university never done anything

relevant to the stud or experience in the game that would make it even harder for them to go to

the gaming industry because the education and the trend and knowledge in game industry always moving forward like

anything else you’re falling behind so there’s multiple techniques to make sure that you’re always up to the trends and

replicating the experience from the gaming industry you do that in two steps or two two sections first of all being

up to date with the everything is happening in the gaming industry highly recommend microlearning reading few pages a day of book relevant

to the industry um like there’s a lot of cool books uh what comes to mind is there one Blood Sweat and pixels uh

playold production uh the game design Theory there’s a lot of good books I also have a carousel about a lot of

books so take some insation this is a good moment to share Ali’s very active on LinkedIn oh you don’t know Ali he

posts every day so you have an hour or so of his time here if you need more

go to his go to his LinkedIn page follow cuz there’s more and there’s a lot on

many topics actually so just a quick plug thank you thank you so you’re saying with microlearning how do you end

up doing that so we mentioned the books but now a lot of people in the gaming

industry or passionate they go all in like they start reading two books do five courses learning unreal Unity

blender everything it’s not sustainable like you do that for how long seriously like a few few week weeks and you will

be burned out you will hate the whole thing so my tip for everyone microlearning just like can you do I ask

a lot of people do you read books they said like no not really I say can you read 10 pages a day 10 to 15 yeah sure

it’s not a big deal right it’s just like watching couple of uh cat memes on on Tik Tok 15 minutes yeah do you know how

many books you finish by reading 10 I’m asking you right now do you know how many I do I used to give this advice I think if you read 10 pages a day it’s

over 12 12 books a year or something yeah it’s like around between six and N if they’re normal size yeah if it’s smaller you can go up to of course I was

thinking business books yeah yeah so you are you telling me I can read up

to six to nine books by doing 15 or 10 to 15 pages day yeah I’m telling you thatf and the amazing thing is most

times you start to 10 pages he ends up being 30 50 yeah which has happened to me in in one of the cases because I read

before bed but that book was so good so I start to go to bed earlier because I don’t I don’t take my phone to bed don’t

don’t take your phone to bed I hate that tell me I know don’t I I looked at the camera I should look at you seriously

it’s a really bad habit to take your phone to bed replace with a book is actually a good idea and we need to

disconnect before going you need to reduce the stimulation that we have we have all the day being stimulation and

now before bed definitely we should we should do that not do that second tip is I watch up to 15 minutes YouTube clip

about the gaming industry every day yeah what did you watch today or so H yesterday I was watching let me

remember uh Mark Brown game maker TR kit I love Mark Brown cool 100% is he’s an

amazing he’s a fantastic uh Channel and he was talking about the game he’s making the magnet game so how to make

game without an experience he was an interview it was really amazing so it’s real so he does do every day of course of course I mean you can you can

actually check my history actually I have people when I give this advice I give it to my students so I open open my

phone I go to my history and I show it to them I watch I seriously watch every day 15 I I watch more I’m being honest

but minimum is one one clip I think that’s also a good thing to have as a habit you don’t set yourself watch video

there you said 15 minutes very tangible yeah very tangible so before going to bed or like couple of hours just sit

watch one video but I end up watching more I’m being honest but minimum is 15 minutes then I always have a course

running at any giving Point always what’s the course now okay I’m doing epic the one they launched on Corsair a

few weeks ago okay cool amazing amazing course I’m enjoying it so I do 2 hours a

week that’s it seriously I’m being honest with you 2 hours a week you can finish a course about game design or

whatever in six months if you do two hours a week I’m reading a lot of books

because I do 15 or 10 pages a day and I’m up to the trends because I listen to the best experts uh GDC Mark Brown and

all this experts on YouTube because 15 Minutes video yeah I’m always up to the train because the microlearning so this

is my first STP that for everyone is trying to replicate The Experience from the game industry or stay relevant I

believe this device should be apply even though if you work in the gaming industry maybe especially now like 100%

there’s one website that comes to mind in person game design skills like game

design skills.com it’s called but it’s really really in-depth stuff and they have a nice little Discord I think that

Discord is a big part of like finding breaking into the industry um when you

were saying about breaking into industry I was thinking about game Gams 100% And I was thinking about just talking to

other people who actually develop games yes now now connections like yes connections but also like actually

talking to people making games now just so you can have that lingo and context and I think like there’s a lot of discords that have that there’s a lot of

communities looking for people to build games together just need to connect and

be and start building your own games while waiting or want to apply for the gaming industry by doing the mic

learning by start building games participating in game jams speaking to Industry professionals and there’s a lot

of amazing resources we can mention amir’s one Amir have a massive by the way you can actually book me if you like

go toir resources my my name my name is there even like there’s like really really a lot of amazing people they are

there it’s just like seriously having time with these people is people would pay for 100% And they’re just willing to

give back to the community you just need to know where to look so you have access to amazing experts by the way try to

just try to reach out to Industry experts super open-minded always willing to help you do the microlearning you you

are building games with locally local community or the global Community by doing that your chances increasing by

far because you’re building something you never know you could build a really cool game that you don’t need to be

hired anymore then you start looking for investors or a publisher learning

building multiple games will really en reaching your portfolio as well in my

case just by telling the my company that I build this game I’ve done this to be

in the gaming industry that was that was enough incentive for them to hire me really nice yes because I don’t have a

gaming industry experience but they saw the effort I’ve I’ve put into to the

gaming industry that’s actually a very good point also when you have the evidence

for yourself that you’ve put in all that effort I can imagine that comes cross in the interview 100% And it comes with the

not only tangible in terms of self-confident like I know what you’re

talking about like they say how have you done no I have done but I’ve written gdd and then I did this you don’t even

explain it’s game design document because they they know especially if there’s a designer but they say oh that

person knows gdd that’s person then I built my own engine and I use this uh whatever uh mechanism like cmake or

gmake to build my engine oh that person know how to build uh like projects in in

in visual studio so you’re saying how what you have learned with with details

show it similar equivalent to what you have done at previous job yeah kind of

and when you are don’t have a gaming industry experience most likely you’re applying for you cannot go for expert uh

especially if it’s a game production you will go to mid level or junior level unless the role is business or legal

then doesn’t really matter so that’s really increase your chances microlearning building games enriching

your portfolio that give you self confidence and of course networking being out there you could be the best game designer best artist but if I don’t

see you I won’t hurry you I won even know about you even yes be out there on LinkedIn LinkedIn is absolutely one of

the best places tomorrow oh but they they they will see this like God no when

we have an event in December 4th now so this is December 5th in Stockholm but it’s an example of an

event like we have we organize gaming rally events but there’s loads of local

ones like when I did a quick search like igdc do a lot of events and I’m guessing

like in Stockholm there’s probably others oh we have we have a lot of them but uh hours will be the best of course

sorry sorry for everyone listening but ours going to be amazing exactly so just go where uh gaming events are speak to

Industry professionals show them your work but of course do it in a nice like

build a good connection and if they ask show show them your work or H connect with them and show them after that’s if

that the right person the right eyes you’re hired or you’re highly chance to re to make your CV being red which is

foot in the door making your CV being seen by the right people is a privilege

right now I’m not exaggerating and also if you do it in that way they can give you feedback to improve the next one

100% And every know you hear every rejection with right feedback is a

redirection to the yes yes celebrate and this is back to the mindset that makes me always happy when things fail when

things when I hear when I hear no when I I always see it as it’s a step closer

and that’s how you need everyone needs to see it what happens you you hear no 10 interviews in two months that’s soul

crushing I’m being honest Soul crushing beside all the one that he goes to you and all the one that reject you by Auto

male clear really haven’t seen you it’s so crushing but need to remember that it’s not about you personally first of

all second ask for feedback if you have done the interview fix your portfolio

and be proud that you’re closer be happy that you’re one step closer 100% if you ask for feedback and redirect that’s how

I see it yeah when I used to do this as a recruiter I used to gamify so technically I don’t win unless someone

gets placed at a job there’s loads of steps that happened before that and there signs that I’m in the right direction like even though a lot of

those Smalls tricky you hear no yeah you you adjust you try someone else you need

to do something but when it works it’s it pays off yeah for me like I tracked replies a call did I get an follow-up

call these are all things which aren’t jobs but they are step closer and this is exactly how it happens when you get a

lot of rejections it’s Step Closer same way and I think it’s just very important I just don’t want to double down like

track things that happen like before the rejection cuz then you can know am I

putting in the inputs like that’s the only thing you can control exactly perfect so before we close off here what

is I’m going to do some quick fire questions I’m bringing out my phone wow I’m afraid of the phone now yeah yeah so

for people looking to get promoted as a producer okay what have you noticed when you look at your

career like what are the best producers doing why are they getting promotions While others are you know not game

promotions and our course or the the course that I’m the head of at Future game War so which is game producer uh

video game producer and we do we teach people how to be producer and by building games there’s no actually

career path for producer believe or not so when you say that you mean getting

out education yeah education there no it’s just like game designers uh even

quality assurance programmers but there is nothing called game producer there’s no career path for it even though it’s a

leader role I know it’s shocking when you hear me out so if someone’s an aspiring producer what do they do with that information if you are the company

want to be a producer from my experience I’ve seen a lot of transitions from actually all the crafts I’ve seen from

HR from business from a lot of crafts they showed interest in being a producer and they got it and they were actually

did really good the main two crafts I’ve seen it working well is the game design and quality assurance QA yeah that’s the

one I’ve seen most that’s works really well because they have seen the product they have a full understanding and they

happen to love working with people and they’re good at communication facilitation then they be producers at

the same time that me that meant that a lot of people got to the role just because they show interest and no one

want wanting to do it but it’s a leader role which is tricky that person is not

equipped to do a lot of decisions there’s a there’s a lot of things they there’s nothing there’s nothing to

learn from so how do you become a better producer like practically practically there’s good books you can read uh

inspired it’s how to build a tech product it’s not about games even but games is a software and it’s in Tech so

that’s really good book to to have an understanding to how to build a product you need to understand how the workflow

works in the in in game what the steps are building the communications and back to the tips that we understand your team

uh don’t lose yourself in the details and lo don’t lose the full picture like it’s

really important because what happened if you’re a game designer you will and they speak about game design you will be contributing like your game designer yes

that’s a big trap that’s a big trap you should never lose yourself in details trust them they you know what they’re

doing focus on the bigger things unblocking them see the future risk mitigation go back to the past

understand them Stakes avoid them and this is that’s what you need to be a good producer can you indicate that yes

I can can tell you how we educate our uh students we teach them those subjects

separately how to do Communications how to do leadership how to give feedback how to receive feedback I ask my

students to ask for anonymous feedback from their team do you know how that’s terrifying oh yeah for young see

terrifying for everyone why even for us it’s terrifying Tim Ferris had him I was listening to his podcast and he said

that was one of the worst things ever been through had a full free 60 feedback and he’s someone who’s obviously quite successful receiving feedback is tough

so I ask my students I’m really proud of them I’m I’m really proud of you’re listening I hope they are seriously like

them ask for feedback and receive like harsh or something you didn’t did good it feels bad but that’s how we teach so

they actually did that and we we’re going to discuss it in one to one I’m going to look at the raw feedback they

receed anonymously that’s how we teach and the best way to learn is to make

games so my students ship four games they’re going to ship four games in their study and they’re going to produce

the full games and that’s how we build uh in my a producer who knows how to build games

all right going to continue some rapid fire questions what is Passion week passion week is where you know simple no

meetings Go Bananas oh it’s passion week we cannot use bananas but do whatever

you want seriously do whatever you want learn build whatever crazy pro project

feature that’s it and present it to the company and what has been the results of that because I’ve heard it’s been good

it’s been amazing I cannot imagine star sa without passion week this know that when everyone is right now live and

everyone is enjoying it came from a passion week photo mode what everyone is using to take animazing photos in our

game came from Passion week okay so two more questions yep why do you travel so

much to events okay you need to stand in the line because there’s a lot of people ask me the same and I I’m not sure if

you should be proud of the statistics I’ve been in air for 5 days this year 2024 5 days in air flying between count

is and my answer is imagine this and that’s how I believe it’s

reality a single encounter like one single

interaction one single inspiration you got from someone one single connection

could change your life I’m not exaggerating I mean and I’m looking at you and I know your story so you don’t

need to brag about it I was part of it I was proud that we’re in Barcelona I concur it happens see so I don’t need to

sell that to but I’m really telling that to everyone listening to me right now this is how I see it so are you telling

me there’s a chance for me to take me somewhere else and I’m going to miss that hell no I’m flying man I’m going to

go there you remember I did fly to Barcelona to meet you there 6 hours there it was like a 4our event and then

you left that you you remember it was literally in 12 hours I did back and forth to Barcelona from Stockholm which

is 3 hours trip to be there for 4 hours I I I’m so proud I’m so happy I

did that I don’t even regret it’s like I’ve learned a lot we had a meeting follow up we it’s just amazing what you

can you hear from new people it changes your perspective plus I’m a public speaker so I be on a stage which is I

really love sharing my stories connecting with people I love that so traveling was big part of where I am

today is big part of my personality growing am I going to keep fly the same

uh rate maybe not because now I know what events it works more for me you

know that because you’ve done 100% you don’t know what you don’t know I had to do it so I highly recommend that I’m not

asking to fly I mean it’s not even fair to ask student to fly 100 hour or like I

have like 50 flights this year it’s not fair what I want you to do is the

following let’s say Harry invit me to do like one of those uh uh board games with

the friends but I I don’t feel like really playing board games then I always skip next time you say yes go

do it next time say I’m coming do something you don’t usually do that’s

the big best form of creativity take a different route go to some events you never even though you don’t feel social

that day do it you never know so that’s how I I view uh flying and that’s how I

view interaction with people amazing yeah I think we should finish there perfect Ali it’s been a pleasure what

should people do where can people find you okay guys I write on LinkedIn every day except Saturday sorry about the spam

you can read my post if you don’t read it just put like or something so so the algorithm is Happy really happy to be

connected with all of you I do my best to share absolutely the steps that got me in here I I even exposed myself a bit

on social media I don’t mind I’m really want people to have an easier journey I really would love to connect with all of

you reach out to me in DMs I take my time to reply because I’m getting a lot of love and support from all of you

which I really appreciate but I always do my best to reply to all of you thank you so much and Harry my man we have

been planning this for ages now yeah and it’s happening finally job let’s go

thank you and yeah let’s go party tomorrow is tomorrow yeah let’s do that

yeah nice Al thank you so much and everyone thank you and have a good day from me and Harry take care I haven’t

done it in a while subscribe maybe subscribe oh true true actually don’t follow me on LinkedIn go subscribe to

him instead subscribe to the gaming Playbook wherever you’re listening is it YouTube Spotify Apple your choice

all you need to do click subscribe it’s all I ask for do that amazing all right bye everyone