作者：Greg Holsclaw

独立开发者及工作室保持一层不变或者糟糕状态，应归结为他们并未解雇毫无作用的员工吗？

“如果你不辞退某人，那你将无法成为一个优秀的管理者”——这是好友在我最新开发过程中告知的一句话。但它对吗？

难道在你真正成为某个项目/工作室的出色管理者之前，你必须忍痛辞退某些员工吗？

employees(from localwin.com)

我相信不少MBA课程已深入探讨管理领域，但我打算分享自己近几个月来的经历。我会着重讨论细节部分，因为在做出人员调整之后，《Lab Bunnies》已恢复运作。其实，第一个员工并不糟糕，如果时间与项目吻合，我有可能会和他们续约，然而情况并非如此，所以我必须做出人事调整。

我来自初创工作室，当时盛行的咒语是‘快速雇佣，更快解雇’。但作为团队的领导者，我从未直接参与人员调整（我负责考虑/面试候选人，商议一些潜在的裁员）。我也从未宣布执行解聘的决定。

首次解决这些问题时，我们尝试提供充足的动力（游戏邦注：比如再次提供机会、宽限截止时间），而不是直接辞退某人，虽然我清楚如果事情得不到改善，结局将会如何。由于之前我从未解雇他人，所以我尽量避免这种做法。我会再次提供机会，为问题找到变通方案，试图找到全心动力来保持他们的工作激情。

然而，这些方法毫无效果。此时好友在看到我的挣扎后说出了开头的那句话。作为局外人的他们发现，由于我未进行人员调整，所以这个项目正在落败。而且如果独立工作室运行的项目失败了，那么整个工作室会面临惨败。所以我做出了一些大的改动，其中伤害了某些员工，但并没有我想的严重，在此忽略，随后我们完成了《Lab Bunnies》。

但工作室可以在不经历这一过程下做出伟大创举吗？我希望可以。

至少我认识到，这是自己的过错！

作为某个项目或工作室的管理者，首先他应承担责任，接着才有一番大作为。如果你必须解雇某个外包人员或员工，那么责任应归咎在招聘者身上。事后反思后我发现，首先应该责备的是我自己。

他们的技能水平符合任务要求吗？薪资待遇能够激发他们努力工作吗？项目的特点能够保持他们的兴趣吗？他们适应项目的文化背景吗？

在你增添团队成员之前，你应确定上述或者更多相关问题。如果随后你发现他们并不合适，或者毫无工作动力，那是你的责任，因为一开始你未深入了解他们。

而我匆匆略过了这些问题。当某个主要团队成员向我引荐某个员工时。作为朋友的朋友，我欣然接受了他。

之后，在超过期限，且游戏品质下降的情况下，我发现他：

-缺乏该项目所需的相应技能（打算学到新知识）

-能力并未如先前交谈所显示的那么充分

-与薪资待遇极不匹配（一般工资水平无法激发他的工作热情，而他却想单独掌管一个项目）

解决办法：我们聘请小时制的外包人员，其资要求与技能通通符合我们对任务完成的需求，而且他能独立完成整个项目。我们花了2周的时间，不断尝试并支付了大量试验员工，最终找到了合适的人选。

宗旨——轻易雇佣员工只会更大延误生产效率，倒不如先花上数周或一个月的时间找到最佳人选。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

You Won’t be a Good Manager if Can’t Let Someone Go

by Greg Holsclaw

Paging Donald Trump!!! Do indie devs and indie studios stay mediocre or bad because they won’t part ways with someone not pulling their weight?

“You Won’t be a Good Manager if Can’t Let Someone Go” were the words a close friend utter to me in the midst of my latest project. But is it true?

Must you go through the pain of letting someone go before you can really be good at managing a project/studio?

Let’s discuss in the comments, because I haven’t decided yet, but I will give one main thought on why it happened for me. NOTE: Is related to our upcoming game, Lab Bunnies.

I am sure there are plenty of MBA courses that have tread this ground well, but I want to share my experiences over the last few months. I will keep the details to a minimum since the project did get back on its feet, but after a replacement was made. The first person wasn’t bad, might contract out to them again if the timing and projects align, but they just didn’t in this case and so a change needed to be made.

I came from the start-up world, where one mantra is ‘Hire fast, fire faster’. But as a team leader, I was never directly in the chain of command that made personnel changes (I advised/interviewed candidates for hiring and was consulted on a few potential layoffs). But I never had to pull that trigger and have that tough talk.

The weight of first trying to fix the issues (second chances, re-rolled deadlines, ….) while knowing that if things didn’t improve was a great motivator to try and get it right without having to go the distance and lay someone off. Since I had never let someone go before, I was avoiding it like the plaque. Give another chance. Find a workaround for the issues. Try to find new motivations to keep them engaged.

Nope, none of it was working. That is when a close friend who was watching me struggle uttered that opening refrain. From the outside they could see the project was going to fail because I couldn’t move to replace a team member. And if the project fails, in indie studios at least, the chance of the whole studio failing goes through the roof. So I made the change, made a bunch a waves, hurt some feelings, but not as bad as I thought it would shake out, and we finished the project.

But can a studio do great things without going through this process? I sure hope so.

At Least I Learned Something – It was my fault!

Taking responsibility as the manager of a studio or project is the first step to doing it better next time. If you have to let a contractor or employee go, then the person who brought them onto the team is in responsible. On reflection, the first person (only person) to blame was myself.

Was their skill level matched to the task? Was their compensation set properly to motivate them? Was the project novel enough to keep their interest? Did they fit into the project’s culture?

These, and more, are the questions you should have nailed down before adding that team member. If later you find out they aren’t a fit, or aren’t motivated, it is your fault for not digging deeper at the beginning.

For me, I rushed past all these questions. The other main team member recommended an individual for certain tasks. As a friend-of-a-friend, I moved forward with the person.

Later, as deadlines were missed and quality declined, I found out:

- Skills for some of the project tasks were lacking (wanted to learn new stuff)

- Availability was much more spotty than originally communicated

- Compensation mix was off (rev-share mix didn’t motivate, as it does some people with a desire to ‘own’ a project)

Solution: We hired a hourly paid contractor whose compensation and skill set matched exactly the tasks we needed to accomplish, and whose availability was there to rush the project along. We took 2 weeks, numerous paid samples and trials until finding the right person.

Main Takeaway – A short-cut in hiring produces many more delays than taking weeks or a month on the front end to find the right people.

So back to my original question, primed for discussion:

Must you go through the pain of letting someone go before you can really be good at managing a project/studio?(source:gamasutra)