作者：Michael Levall

本篇文章是基于我在“Loch Ness”项目的经历，而该项目后来也发展成了《Epigenesis》这款游戏，并赢得了Epic Games’Inc举办的Make Something Unreal Live 2013竞赛。在这系列反应的第一部分中，我将讨论创意领导和项目领导间的区别，并总结为什么在一个拥有10个成员的项目中，同一个人身负这两种角色是不好的事。本篇文章的目标是那些与我在6个多月前面临着相同情境的学生或新领导者们。我从Michael A. West的著作《Effective Teamwork》中学到了许多，尽管它并不是关于游戏开发内容，但是我们却能从中吸取许多智慧。

创意领导和项目领导有什么区别？

创意领导和项目领导的区别在哪里？这主要是基于你的团队结构和团队的特定需求。举个例子来说吧，如果你的团队只拥有4至5名成员，那么同一个人扮演着这两个角色便会更有帮助，因为这将能让其他成员拥有更多时间去执行游戏开发的其它工作。而现在我们将主要着重于它们的区别。

创意领导

下图所描述的是创意领导（C.L），团队成员以及他们所创造的作品（在这个例子中也就是游戏）之间的关系。“成员”代表你的团队中的所有成员，不只局限于美术人员，程序员和设计师。他们都肩负着为产品创造组件的任务，而创意领导则在他们的作品与最终游戏之间起着过滤作用。他的工作是确保其他成员所创造出来的内容能在最后有效地整合在一起，他也需要确保游戏核心的完整性，而不能受到任何一名成员的影响。除此之外，他还需要将团队的愿景传达给其他成员，确保每个人都能始终朝着同一方向前进。

C.L（from gamasutra）

根据我的经验，做好这一点的最佳方法便是始终参与团队工作。在此，与工作相关的反馈便非常重要，你可以从每日工作中抽出一点时间与团队中的每个成员谈论他们当前的工作，以及如何更好地完善这些工作而达到游戏核心的要求。关于要给与多少反馈以及多少细节存在着一定的标准，没有人愿意花时间与那些不喜欢自己角色颜色的人争吵不修。你的工作并不是按照自己的想法去确定任何内容，而是保证团队成员所创造的所有内容都能够符合游戏愿景。待在一个小型团队中，你应该明确游戏的核心，如此你的个人想法才不会成为引导游戏朝着正确方向前进的唯一选择。

领导

下图所描述的是项目领导（P.L），成员，创意领导以及产品之间的关系。C.L是负责创意过程的领导，而P.L则是团队本身的领导（因此也可以直接称之为领导）。作为引导团队成员执行每日工作的人，领导的责任便是按时递交产品。领导还需要处理团队内部间的关系，如与其它工作，发行商以及其它公司间的关系。为了保证产品能够按照愿景顺利完成，领导需要尽可能地支持团队，但同时他也需要有效地管理时间，做好团队预算并保证团队成员的心理健康等等。基于此，创意领导和领导在同一个问题上往往会基于不同的角度。他们都希望最终能够创造出一个真正“优秀的”作品，但是创意领导会想办法基于愿景去完成创造，而领导则更加关心创造时间是否能够符合日程表的要求，即不会出现延时现象。

P.L and C.L（from gamasutra）

作为领导，我总是会确保团队能够拥有所需要的资源和技能去完成分配到的任务。在项目过程中，这包括与学校的老师协商，希望能够给予我们更多时间去致力于项目中，同时也确保团队成员具有足够的社交技能能够与其他成员友好共事。

群组必须足够有效率

项目领导的主要功能是确保群组在日常工作中足够有效率。就像下图中所描述的，效率不只包括领导，同时也包括团队中的成员。虽然创意领导也需要像成员那样确保团队的效率，但这却并非他的主要功能。

effective（from gamasutra）

领导所做的一切都必须从某种程度上提高团队的效率。你需要创造一个日程表，从而让成员知道该做些什么；设定预算，如此团队便不会在完成项目前用光所有钱；你还需要充当私人教练，从而避免成员因为压力过度而遭遇心理疾病。这些任务都是帮助团队提高效率的必要元素。

领导一个团队还有一些不同的方法，并且会基于情况的不同而发生改变。我所使用的方法是West所谓的便利法，即注重改变。这种方法非常适合于不明确且较为复杂的任务以及拥有较高技能和积极性的团队。它主要侧重于咨询团队成员如何做决定，并利用魄力改变成员对自己以及工作的看法。作为一个领导，你需要想办法帮助团队成员独立做决定，当然前提是这不会影响团队的效率。当成员询问他们该做什么或者该如何解决问题时，你需要尝试着引导他们独自找出解决方法，即使用像“你会如何处理这个问题？”以及“你认为真正的问题是什么？”等问题。

一个人同时扮演这两种角色

现在我将解释为什么这两种角色最好不要同时出现在一个成员身上，这是我在MSUL13竞赛中同时扮演着这两种角色的经验之谈。

争论

当讨论哪些功能能够在游戏中执行时，我们常常会想到的两个关键词便是“时间”和“优先权”。领导的责任是按时递交产品，而创意领导的责任则是确保准确的功能先后次序。这将导致创意领导认为重要的功能不一定是当时的最佳选择。而我们必须由不同人代表不同面才能进行讨论。

决定

这是基于团队的选择。我建议在面对重要决定时，你能让项目领导确定日期，如果整个团队能够达成一致意见，那么创意领导便能做出最后决定。这是源于这两个角色所关注的焦点。领导关注于效率，为了让他能够朝着这一目标前进，他就必须拥有足够的权利去推动团队并做出重要决定，如此团队才不会停滞不前。另一方面，创意领导所关注的是愿景，因此他最有资格根据讨论内容而做出最后决定。但这并非适用于所有情境，如果决定可能会影响预算或时间表，那么领导就必须涉足并阻止创意领导做出破坏性的决定。最好的情况是，创意领导能够始终咨询领导的意见，从而做出最中肯的决定。

时间

这两种角色都属于时间消耗型，如果一个成员同时扮演着这两种角色，他便有可能更多地专注于其中一个角色而忽视了另外一个角色。在小型团队中（游戏邦注：例如3至5个人）可能就是不是这样了，但是在拥有6至10名成员的较大团队中，我会建议你让不同成员去扮演不同的角色。

辅导

作为领导，你需要辅导成员更有效地扮演好自己的角色。就像之前所提到的，你在执行辅导工作的同时也可以通过提出一些有效的问题而帮助成员们更好地发挥自己的创意和能力。另一方面，作为创造性领导，有时候你也需要去纠正那些正在偏离愿景的成员。如果你是同时负责这两种任务的话，你便很难去理解创意自由和创意约束之间的界线。

少于5个人的团队

在小型团队（3至5名成员）中，你可能会让同一个人扮演这两种角色，而不管我之前所说的。因为如果你将这两种角色分配到不同人身上，你的团队中便会出现两个不能专注于自己游戏任务的成员。你们需要记住，我在这里所提到的只是个人建议，你可以根据自己的情况去调整角色和成员的职权，确保他们能够更好地执行任务。

结论

在本篇文章中我讨论了小团队的游戏开发中两种不同类型的领导角色，我是根据自己的经历而着重区分了创意领导和项目领导的不同。真心希望这些建议能够带给你帮助。

（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）

The Creative and the Leader

by Michael Levall

Reflections on Leadership – Part 1

This text is based on my experience from the Loch Ness project that later became Epigenesis, which won the Make Something Unreal Live 2013 competition hosted by Epic Games’ Inc. In this first part of a series of reflections I will discuss the difference between Creative and Project leadership, summing up with a discussion on why it is a bad idea to have both of these roles on the same person in a project with ten people. This text is meant for students/new leaders who are in the same situation I was in roughly six months ago. I have taken much inspiration and thoughts on leadership from Michael A. West’s excellent book Effective Teamwork, and while it isn’t focused on game development there are many wisdoms to be had from reading it.

Creative and Project Lead – What’s the difference?

What is the difference between the Creative and the Project Lead? This will most likely depend on your group structure and the specific needs of your group. For example, if you have a small group with only four to five members, it might be better to have these roles on the same person to free up the others for actual work on the game. But for now, let’s focus on their differences.

The Creative

The picture below describes very simply the relationship between the Creative Lead (C.L), the members of the team and the product that is to be produced (in this case, a game). The members represent all of the members in your group, including but not limited to artists, programmers and designers. They are all tasked with producing material for the product, and the Creative stands as a filter between their work and the finished game. His job is to make sure that everything that gets created will neatly fit together in the end, he will also make sure that the core of the game stays intact and doesn’t get messed with by any of the members. His job is to communicate the team’s vision to the rest of the members, to make sure that everyone is going in the same direction at all times.

In my experience, the best way of doing this is to always try to make yourself available for your team. Work-related feedback is key here, try to take time out of your daily work to talk to every member of the group about their current work and how it can be improved to fit better in with the core of the game. There is of course a fine line between how much and how detailed your feedback should be, no one wants to be hassled every hour by someone who doesn’t like the color of the nails on their character. Your job is not to make everything look just the way you personally want it, but to make sure that everything that gets created fits with the vision for the game. Being a small team, you probably came up with the core of the game together, so there is a good chance that your personal opinion might not always be the one that gets the game in the right direction.

The Leader

On the picture below you can see the relationship between the Project Lead (P.L), the members, the Creative and the Product. While the Creative is the leader of the creative process, the Project Lead is the leader of the team itself (hereby referenced to as the “Leader”). Guiding the members in their daily work, the Leader is responsible for delivering the product on time and on schedule. It is the Leader that handles inter-team relationships such as with other game studios, publishers and other organizations. The Leader supports the team in order to ensure that the product gets made according to the vision, but he will always put time management, team budget and group members’ mental health first. In this matter, the Creative and the Leader have two different angles on the same problem. Both of them want to create a “good” product in the end, but while the Creative tries to hold the product close to the vision, the Leader will try to get the product done on schedule without any delays.

As a Leader, I made sure that my team had all of the resources and skills they needed to complete the task assigned to them. During this project, this included discussing with teachers at our school to give us more time to work on our project, but also making sure that my members had the social skills needed to work together as a team. The last one is in my mind one of the most important, interesting and rewarding topics in leadership and I will discuss it more thoroughly in a later part in this series. This leads me to the last part of the picture that describes the roles of Leader and Creative.

The group must be effective

The primary function of the Project Lead is to make sure that the group is effective in its day-to-day work. As you can see on the picture below, effectiveness involves not only the Leader but also the members of the group. One could make the case that the Creative also has a responsibility as a member to ensure group effectiveness but this is not his primary function.

Everything that the Leader does should in some way increase team effectiveness. You need a schedule so that members know what to work on, a budget so that your team doesn’t run out of money before they are finished with the project and personal coaching so that the members don’t suffer a mental breakdown from stress. All of these, and much more, is done to increase the effectiveness of the team.

There are a couple of different ways of leading a team, all suited to different circumstances. I use is what West calls a facilitative style with focus on transformation (West, 2004, p. 71). This style is best suited when the task is unclear and complex while having a highly skilled and motivated team. It focuses on consulting your members for advice on how to make decisions and using charisma to transform the members’ views of themselves and their work. As a Leader, you should focus on helping the members to make the decisions themselves, as long as it does not influence team effectiveness. When members asks what they should do or how to solve a problem, try to coach them into finding the solution themselves, using questions such as “How would you go about solving this problem?” and “What do you think the real problem is?”

Both roles on the same member, why not?

I am now going to make the case why it is a bad idea to have these two roles on the same member, these all comes from personal experience as I had both of these roles during the entire MSUL13 competition.

Arguments

When arguing about which feature to implement in the game, the two key words that are often considered are “time” and “priority”. While the Leader is responsible for delivering the product on time, the Creative is responsible for making sure that the features get prioritized correctly. This will most likely lead to arguments as the feature the creative sees as important might not always be the best choice time-wise. In these arguments, it is important to have the two sides represented by different persons so that an actual discussion can take place.

Decisions

This depends on the preferences of your group. I recommend that you let the Project Lead decide on a date when an important decision needs to be made, and if the team can’t come to an agreement by then the Creative has final say and must make a decision. This is derived from the focuses of the two roles. The Leader is focused on effectiveness, in order for him to be able to work toward this end he should have the right to force the team to make important decisions so that the team doesn’t reach a standstill. The Creative on the other hand should be focused on the vision, and is thusly most qualified to take a decision based on what he has heard from the discussions. This might not be the case under all circumstances, as a decision might impact budget or time schedule the Leader might have to step in and prevent the Creative from taking a decision that might otherwise drive the whole team off a cliff. Preferably the Creative should always consult the Leader for input on the effects of his decision before actually making it.

Time

Both of the roles are time consuming, and if one person has them both there is a good chance that he will focus his attention more on one of them and partly neglect the other. This might not be the case in smaller teams, i.e. three to five, but in larger teams such as six to ten members I strongly suggest giving the roles to two different members.

Coaching

As a Leader, you will have to coach your members to be more effective in their roles. While doing this, as mentioned before, you should try to ask open questions to help the member use his own creativity and abilities to fulfill his tasks. On the other hand, as a Creative, you sometimes have to step in to correct a member that is going off track from the vision. The line between creative freedom and creative restriction can sometimes be hard to make out if you are responsible for both.

Teams smaller than five

In a smaller team (three to five members) you might want to put both of the roles on the same person in spite of what I have previously discussed. This is because the roles will not be so time consuming that they are not manageable by one person, and if you split the roles between two people you will have two members that are not able to completely focus on their work on the game. Remember that what I have written here are only suggestions, and you should adjust the roles and the authority of the members that have them to work for you.

End of Part 1

In this post I have discussed two different kinds of leadership with focus on game development in smaller teams, I have tried to shed light on the differences and aspects of Creative and Project leadership from my point of view. I hope that my experiences have been of help to you, please stay tuned for Part 2 were I will focus on the role of the Project Lead, discussing how the Leader can increase team effectiveness and what tripwires there are for new Leaders.

Bibliography

West, M. A. 2004. Effective Teamwork: Practical lessons from organizational research. 2nd Ed. Leicester: The British Psychological Society, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-4051-1058-7.(source:gamasutra)