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Supercell“倒三角”管理结构的实践与挑战

发布时间:2019-02-13 08:57:00 Tags:,

Supercell“倒三角”管理结构的实践与挑战

原作者:Rebekah Valentine 译者:Vivian Xue

Supercell的CEO埃卡·潘纳宁(Ilkka Paananen)去年在GDC大会上讲话时,他告诉听众他自认为是“行业内最没权力的CEO”。而在上个月,该公司的第五款游戏——《荒野乱斗》(Bawl Stars)发行前夕,潘纳宁在Supercell的赫尔辛基总部发表了类似的讲话,向台下将近100名内容创作者致以问候。

潘纳宁继续告诉员工们这对于世界上最成功的开发工作室来说意味着什么。决策权,他说,掌握在公司内部各个开发团队手中,他本人没有权力。潘纳宁说无论团队的决策是否重要,都无需经过他的审批。

supercell-ceo-illka-paananen(from pocketgamer)

supercell-ceo-illka-paananen(from pocketgamer)

“我有一个非常简单的想法:若我们把公司结构上下颠倒会怎样?”他问大家。“让创作者、游戏开发者拥有一切权力。如果组建这样一家新型公司,实际上由创意者们主导,其他人在旁边帮忙,会怎样呢?”

潘纳宁的演讲内容和“最没权势的CEO”头衔对于Supercell之外的人来说可能很理想化,甚至不可置信。但过去两天内,我对公司的开发者、游戏主管、社区管理者和社区成员进行了采访,大家的言论都呼应了同一句话:开发者拥有一切权力。他们决定一切。Supercell“掌权”的人能随时解决问题。

举个例子,Supercell的新作《荒野乱斗》的游戏主管弗兰克·凯恩伯格(Frank Keienburg)。作为Supercell其中一个游戏团队的负责人,在谈到Supercell的“领导”应该是什么样子时,他重申了潘纳宁的观点,不过他承认自己在这个集体决策的团队中拥有地位。

“作为领导,我们不一定是那种说‘我们现在就做这个’的人,”凯恩伯格说,“我们可以是帮助他人的人,方式有很多。作为游戏主管,我帮助团队做好工作。可能是‘我们的美术师不够’,可能是‘这家伙的电脑太卡了’。这听起来很搞笑,但在很多公司里,人们坐在一台超卡的电脑前工作,结果半年后出了问题。我帮助他们解决所有的问题,使他们做好工作。”

“同时,可以说我有点像连接团队与外部的纽带。为了我们的营销工作、合作方、所有相关的人,这样团队就可以专心做他们热爱的东西,也就是游戏。游戏团队专注于我们具体要做的下一件事、下一次更新,而我能自由地朝前看。我会观望未来的12个月,寻找我们未来的发展方向和目标。每次更新后,我们会开会讨论接下来要做的事。如果团队无法一致同意做某事,那么我就是那个做出决断的人。”

持有这种观点的不止凯恩伯格一个人。《部落冲突》的游戏主管伊诺·乔司(Eino Joas)在谈到他的角色时也发表了同样的看法。

“我不是决定事物的人,”他说,“我会提出我认为存在的问题的地方、可以改进的地方,但我不是做决定的人。团队做决定。我作为协调者,组织团队一起讨论并达成统一意见。我曾经提出过一些想法,被团队完全否决了。”

和很多Supercell职员一样,乔司有些意外地获得了游戏主管的位置,这是由于该公司职员能够在不同游戏部门间相对自由地转移。许多员工告诉我,虽然没有人会随意地从某个重要的岗位跳到别的岗位上,对于那些觉得自己的兴趣和才华在别处的员工,工作室允许他们自由地移动到别的部门。通常,在某个游戏暂停开发期间,团队成员会去帮助其它有需要的团队,而这些临时的帮手们最终可能会加入他们帮过的团队。

“我之前是《海岛奇兵》(Boom Beach)的设计师,然后《部落冲突》的前任主管被叫去帮一个新团队,并且他觉得这很重要,”乔司说,“我们一直在商谈这件事,但感觉一切还早,然后突然间它就发生了。团队需要主管,并且人们对我说‘去吧,你能做好’,而我觉得‘好吧,我只在团队里呆了几个月’我对团队不是非常了解。”

斯特凡·恩布洛姆(Stefan Engblom)拥有相似的经历,从事了两年半的《卡通农场》(Hayday)开发工作后,他最终成为了《皇室战争》游戏团队的一员。他和同为《皇室战争》开发者的赛斯·艾莉森(Seth Allison)说,虽然不同团队可能有着各自的项目跟进或沟通流程,但大家有着共同的基本工作理念——团队决策和个人自由尝试新想法。

例如,艾莉森告诉我,他在《皇室战争》团队工作的第一周里,他感觉有一些东西和分发给新玩家卡牌的进阶系统不相匹配。但当他拿着解决方案找人审批时,却找不到人。

“我一直在找人审批,”他说,“我想‘好吧,如果我告诉游戏主管,他说没问题,那也许就行了,’结果他对我说,‘啊,你想做就做吧,挺好的。’于是我说,‘如果我和团队成员说这个想法,50%的人觉得行,这么做要达到什么条件?’我得到的答案是,‘如果你认为这么做是正确的,就去做,但如果最终它是错的,你要承担责任。’

“在团队内部,每个人都有自己的想法,” 恩布洛姆补充道。“我们会讨论它们,我们会思考‘它有什么明显的错误吗?’但如果它听起来很酷,尤其是如果它很容易测试,那么我们通常会测试它。”

恩布洛姆、艾莉森和其他许多人都很感谢Supercell的结构为他们带来的好处,但他们承认团队决策和独立的模式伴随着挑战。

“如果你是那种需要别人告诉你每天做什么的员工,这种工作环境不太好,”艾莉森说,“你必须是个主动性很强的人。在休整期间,你必须找一些你认为对你影响很大的、能使你恢复斗志的事情来填补这段时间。这对很多人来说可能是个挑战,因为你肯定会面临透支或者疲惫的状态,只希望有人能告诉你今天要做什么。但从长期来看,这种环境要发挥作用,全体团队成员都需要具备很强的主动性。那些对他人依赖性强的人不太适合这种工作环境。它使人们意见更好地融合,每个人都像参与到我们正在做的事情中,形成了一种良好、健康的工作环境。”

“每个团队都非常独立,这也存在一个弊端,我们往往会犯类似的错误,”恩布洛姆补充道。“沟通很困难——我们把注意力集中在自己的事情上,没有有效地分享信息。人们可能同时得出同样的结论。我们在这方面已经改进了,但仍是个问题。”

令人惊讶的是,对于一家员工超过200人的公司,这种独特的结构理念似乎得到了员工的普遍认同。潘纳宁认为,这种相互理解源于公司从一开始就不断强调自身文化,并通过大规模的招聘筛选强化了这种文化。

“我认为这种理念起作用的唯一原因是公司一开始就秉持这个想法,”他说,“工作室刚成立时,我们有六个人,后来我们雇佣了15-20个价值观与我们一致的人,这些人又雇佣了20-30个价值观与我们一致的人,这些人又继续雇佣更多的人,这个理念就这样慢慢发展壮大。这是一群庞大、志趣相投的人。”

“我们拥有共同的价值观——Supercell第一,团队第二。我或者其他领导不参与其中。公司成员相互问责,我们现在有200多人,一个相当关键的群体。宣传公司文化不是我的责任,也不是某个员工的责任。是每个人的责任。这些人非常在乎公司文化且彼此尊重。”

他赞同了艾莉森的观点,即尽管这种结构适用于Supercell,但它适合那些享受“自由创造和承担风险”的人,而不是那些照章办事、循规蹈矩、无自律性的人。

他还提出了另一个挑战性,一个他亲身经历的挑战。

“在一切进展顺利的时候谈结构问题总是一件愉快的事,像如今这样,”他指的是《荒野乱斗》的发行。“但是当事情进展不太顺利、或者当你不认可一些团队正在做的事情时,就完全是另一回事了。问题变成了‘即便我对事情的进展不满意,我仍要坚持这个结构吗?我还能相信团队知道什么对Supercell最好吗?’你可以不同意,但你得遵守承诺。讽刺的是,我们越成功,这个问题就越难解决。事实上,我们经常谈论这件事。我非常自豪我们能够继续保持这个结构。”

本文由游戏邦编译,转载请注明来源,或咨询微信zhengjintiao

When Supercell CEO Ilkka Paananen spoke at GDC last year, he told the crowd gathered that he referred to himself as “the industry’s least-powerful CEO.” And it was with a similar speech that Paananen greeted nearly one hundred content creators at Supercell’s Helsinki headquarters last month on the eve of the launch of the studio’s fifth game, Brawl Stars.

Paananen went on to tell both crowds what this meant for the power structure of one of the world’s most successful development studios. Decision-making, he said, lay with the individual development teams as units and not at all with him. Paananen doesn’t even give approval for decisions made by these teams, minor or major.

“What if we formed this new type of company where actually it would be the creative people running the show, and everybody else was there just to help?”

“It’s a very simple idea: what would happen if we turned this organization upside down?” he asked. “We wanted the creative people, the game developers, to have all the power. What if they would form this new type of company where actually it would be the creative people running the show, and everybody else was there just to help?”

Paananen’s speech and “least-powerful CEO” title may sound idealistic and even unbelievable to those outside of Supercell. But over the course of two days of interviews with developers, game leads, community managers, and community members, I heard these same lines echoed again and again: the developers have all the power. They make the decisions. Those “in charge” at Supercell are simply there to remove obstacles.

Take Frank Keienburg, game lead on Supercell’s recent release Brawl Stars. As someone in charge of one of Supercell’s game teams, he both reiterated Paananen’s stance on what a “leader” at Supercell should be, but also acknowledged his place on a game team making decisions as a unit.

“As leads, we are not necessarily the people who say, ‘We do this now,’” Keienburg said. “We are people who enable other people, and that can take very different forms. As a game lead, I enable the team to do their job. That can be, ‘We don’t have enough artists, I need to find more artists.’ That can be, ‘This guy’s computer is too slow.’ And it sounds funny, but in many companies around the world, people are sitting at a slow computer for half a year before something happens. I remove all the obstacles on the way and allow them to do their job.

“I’m also kind of the link to the outside world, so to speak. For our marketing efforts, for our partners, for everyone around it, so that the team can focus on what they love doing, which is the game. Game teams focus on the actual next thing we are doing, the next update, while I have the liberty to look further down the road. I look at the next 12 months so there is a vision of a direction we could take. After an update, we get together to discuss what we have lined up. And at a high level, if the team can’t agree on doing something, then I would be the tie-breaker.”

Keienburg isn’t alone. Clash of Clans game lead Eino Joas expressed a similar understanding of his role.

“I’m not someone who decides things,” he said. “I have opinions of where I think the problems are and what could be developed and made better, but I’m not the guy who makes calls. That’s the team. I’m a facilitator of sorts in getting the team discussing things and forming team opinions. I’ve had some ideas that have been completely shut down.”

Joas was also one of many Supercell employees who had ended up in a lead position on a game somewhat by surprise, thanks to the company’s relatively fluid structure for who works on what game. Multiple people told me that while no one at Supercell would simply jump ship from a pivotal role on a game team to do something elsewhere in the company, the studio allows tremendous freedom of movement to those who feel their interests and talents lay elsewhere. Often members of one team with some downtime will assist on other games where help is needed, and those temporary helping hands may find themselves eventually moving over entirely to the team they helped.

“I was previously doing game design on Boom Beach, then the previous lead got asked if he could help out a new game team going on at the time and he felt it was really important to do that,” Joas said. “We had been talking about it, but the timeline was way in the future, and then suddenly it just happened. There was a need, and people were like, ‘Yeah, you’ll do fine, just go for it.’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’ve only been on the team for a few months.’ I didn’t know the team well.”

Stefan Engblom told a similar story of fluid movement between teams, having worked on Hayday for two and a half years himself before ending up with the Clash Royale team. He and fellow Clash Royale developer Seth Allison said that while different teams across the studio may have unique processes for task tracking or communication within them, they all operate under the same fundamental idea of team-based decision-making and personal freedom to try new ideas.

For example, Allison told me that during his first week on the Clash Royale team, he felt that something wasn’t jiving with the game’s progression system of giving cards to new players. But when he went to find someone to approve his idea to fix it, there was no one to give him permission.

“I kept looking for approval,” he said. “I kept going, ‘Well, if I tell the game lead and he says it’s okay then maybe it’s okay,’ and he was just like, ‘Ah, do whatever, it’s fine.’ So I said, ‘Well if I talk to 50% of the people on the team and they all say it’s fine,’ and I kept looking. ‘What is the threshold for this is okay to do?’ And the answer was, ‘If you think it’s the right thing to do, then do it, but also own it if it ends up being wrong.’

“Within the team, everybody comes with ideas,” Engblom added. “We discuss them, we think about, ‘Is there something that is blatantly wrong with it?’ But if it sounds cool and especially if it’s something easy to test, then we usually just test it.”

Engblom, Allison, and many others were happy to celebrate the advantages that Supercell’s structure had afforded them, but they did acknowledge that the format of team-focused decision making and independence came with its challenges.

“If you’re the sort of employee that needs someone to have someone hand you a to-do list every day, then this is not a great environment,” Allison said. “You need to be very proactive. If you have downtime you need to be able to fill your own downtime with stuff that you think is very impactful and gets you moving. That can be a challenge for a lot of people, because there are definitely days when you’re burnt out or tired and you’re kinda like, ‘Man, I wish someone would just tell me what to do today!’ But long-term, you need all 20 members of the team to be very proactive in order to make it work. It doesn’t work with people who are riding backseat. It creates a good confluence of opinions, everyone wants to chime in on what we’re doing and that makes it a good, healthy environment.”

“Since every team is very independent, one flip side is that we tend to make similar mistakes,” Engblom added. “Communication is hard – we sort of focus on our own thing and we don’t effectively [share] the knowledge. People might come to the same conclusions at the same time. We’ve become better at that, but that’s kind of a thing.”

For a company of over 200 people, it was surprising to encounter what seemed to be fairly universal buy-in on such a unique structural idea. Paananen believes the mutual understanding stems from a continued emphasis on the company’s culture from the beginning, and strong hiring to reinforce that culture.

“The only reason I think it works is that was the idea of the company from the very beginning,” he said. “There were six of us when we started, and we hired the next 15-20 people who we believe were aligned [with our values,] and they hired the next 20-30 people who were aligned, and those people hired more, and that’s how it has grown. It’s a big group of very, very like-minded people.

“We have this value of Supercell First, Team Second. It’s not about me or any other leadership we have here. These people hold each other accountable, and we are more than 200 people now, a sort of critical mass. Culture isn’t my responsibility or any single individual’s responsibility. It’s everyone’s responsibility. And these people really care about culture and they look up to each other.”

He also echoed the sentiment expressed by Allison, that although the structure works well for Supercell, it requires people who enjoy “creative freedom and risk-taking,” and doesn’t jive well with those who require process, structure, and oversight.

He also acknowledged another challenge, one he himself personally experienced.

“It’s always fun to talk about the structure when things are going well, on days like this,” he said, referring to the launch of Brawl Stars. “But it’s a whole other thing to stick to the structure when things aren’t going as well, or when you disagree with what some of the teams are doing. And then the question becomes, ‘Do I still believe in the structure enough even if I’m not happy with how things are going? Do I still trust that the teams know what’s best for Supercell?’ You can disagree, but you commit. Ironically, the more successful we’ve become the harder that’s become. That’s something we talk about a lot, actually. I’m very proud that we’ve been able to hold onto this structure.”(source:Gamesindustry.biz

 


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