Flying Monkeys Game StudioWayne Work - Week 1 Leader - Production Dept - ProducerRyan Applegate - Week 2 Leader - Design Dept - Design DirectorDylan Sprenkle - Week 3 Leader - Programming Dept - Programming LeadRyon Winter - Week 4 Main Co-Leader - Art Dept - Animation LeadChristian White - Week 4 Co-Leader - Art Dept - Art Lead

AbstractThis project will clearly display the team work and effort put in by each member of the group on a weekly basis as well as on the team project as a whole. We have included our professional goals as a team and individually for week one. The week two portion contains our combined mission, values, purpose, and vision statements as well as the answers to the team questions for that week.The week three portion contains the weekly questions and answers about the performance of responsibilities by team members, as well as an outline of Kotter’s steps for change. The week four portion includes the answers concerning the effects leadership had on the team as a whole and our growth, as a team and individually, throughout the course. All weeks include an organizational chart corresponding to the department for the respective week. We will also be including references at the end. Finally you will be able to see our studio logo in the upper right corner of all slides.

Combined Professional GoalThe Flying Monkeys combined professional goal is: The Flying Monkeys leadership team will further develop their leadership skills to foster a team-oriented, values-based environment in the studio. We will use effective leadership strategies to improve team morale and quality of life, thus improving the quality of product. Our products will aim to be interesting, fun, and memorable to our players. Our leadership will aim to promote the team and the product as one unit, providing the customer with a peace of mind that they are getting a quality product with the proper support behind it. Through actionable and realistic expectations, we will produce games that the players will want to play, and continue to play for years to come. Through one year development cycles, we hope to develop successful, memorable, and engaging games that our players will cling to as their own.

Professional GoalsCreate and foster a team of leaders. Our current team has a good base, but we must sharpen our leadership skills

to take on more team members and build the studio as a whole. Each of the current team members will likely oversee multiple people, handle multiple deliverables or tasks, and do so within given timelines. To do this, we will need to create structured organization timelines for all projects, detailed asset lists, detailed requirement lists, and detailed internal HR and company documentation.

Our leaders must foster creativity and push our artists, programmers, technical staff, and others to excel by example. Each of our leaders know or will learn the given specialty inside and out, and be able to mentor team members. Whether this requires self-sacrifice or a more active, upfront approach, our leaders will improve upon the team’s cohesion and efficiency.

Reactivity to coming events is essential to proper strategic planning and goal setting. Our leaders will improve upon their current leadership skills in this area to be better able to align the team’s efforts with focus and determination. Clear-cut expectations will be set and followed for each project or deliverable. All team members will have knowledge of these expectations so that consistency and efficiency are improved overall. No singling out of members will be accepted.

More content in the speaker’s notes.

Professional GoalsValues-based leadership is essential to our growth. Our members are a small-knit team of professionals, through

and through. As such, everyone’s voice will be heard, accepted, and weighed when considering projects or tasks. The team should feel as though they are the ones making the decisions, and the leaders are simply guiding their overall path and cheering them on. Without our team members, we will falter and likely fail. Taking everyone’s viewpoint into consideration and aiding all team members when the need arises will help maintain a steady and fruitful team environment.

Rewards-based leadership is not highly regarded in our studio. Despite this, there is still room for movement. Though, we expect that our team members should see the fruit of their labors in the quality of the product they are building. We will foster this self-reward method. Quality products, team cohesion and cooperation, and quality of life in the workplace are all areas that we intend to improve upon at all points in the studio’s life. Quality of life is especially one area that greatly improves a person’s tendency to self-reward.

Business GoalsThe Flying Monkeys Business Goals are:

● Our product must be meaningful. Customers must want to come back over and over again to play the game. Players must want to talk to their friends about our product, and make their friends play it too.

● Our product must have realistic expectations. Taken into context, scheduling a development lifecycle with the expectation of one million unit sales is a horribly bad idea. Realistic expectations bring realistic business decisions.

● We must design our products with a forward-thinking approach to payment models. If the game calls for a pay-once model then DLC content is a must to retain current players and gain new ones. If the game calls for a free-to-play or subscription model, then we must design content around these models and provide DLC-esque updates consistently.

● Our players are essential to our growth, and we will make every effort to reach out to our players through social media. We value their insights and comments on what players want in a game. We can translate these wants into what players truly need in a game to make it enjoyable.

MissionThe Flying Monkeys Objective is to foster a collaborative and productive environment where members can provide high-level, quality work while maintaining a friendly, team atmosphere. Our Studio’s focus is team cohesion, quality product, and forward-thinking approaches within a fast-paced, Agile development environment. Through efficient, iterative processes, team members will utilize top-quality tools to further the Flying Monkeys mission, and provide quality games for our players.

At Flying Monkeys, we greatly appreciate all of the skills that each team member brings and value their continued collaboration to create quality products. Each team member brings with them a set of skills. Some of these skills will be foreign to other team members, and some of them will be familiar. Team members should work together to learn new skills, both in class and out, as well as share current skills. At any time, a team member should provide insights or bring skills to bear on the current deliverable at hand. As has been said before, bringing together the skills and abilities of all team members can, and will, improve the quality of our work. In the spirit of collaboration, during team meetings, we should try and discuss skills that we learn so that we may all learn from these skills and benefit the team as a whole.

Values

The Flying Monkeys team is a team of solid professionals with one distinct goal in mind. We are here to create games that we love, and we aim to create these games so that our players will love them as well. Our purpose is to create games that provide players with a new and unique experience. We strive to introduce new and cutting edge mechanics as well as stories and aesthetics that allow players to truly experience games like never before.

Purpose

The Flying Monkeys vision is to see our games beloved by players. Such games as the Baldur’s Gate series, Fallout, Call of Duty, and Minecraft come to mind when thinking of our games in the future. We want our games to become something that players will want to go back to long after they have finished them so that players can relive the experience that they had when they first played them.Flying Monkeys Game Studio sees itself designing, programming, writing, and producing a AAA game within the next four years. This goal is attainable because of the skilled team that we have assembled and the excellent leadership that we have cultivated through numerous personal and professional trials.

Vision

Conflict ResolutionIf a conflict arises:

The first step is to contact the team member that is causing the problem and attempt to resolve the problem between the team members.

If this does not solve the problem, then you must contact the team leader for your department and ask them to moderate a solution that is acceptable to both parties.

If this is unsuccessful, the next step is for the team leader to contact higher management, explaining the conflict in detail and the steps that have been taken to resolve it.

We will ask higher management to assist in resolving the conflict only if we are unable to solve it ourselves. Regardless of the resolution of the conflict we must notify all other teammates of the outcome of the conflict and

any changes that may result.

EthicsThe Flying Monkeys team abides by a high ethical standard.Following these ethical standards will keep our team honest and its members in good standing with each other:

All members contribute to all parts of a project, as neededMembers will not be allowed a “free pass” or pass others’ work as theirsAll members will be consulted on all projects as neededAll member’s ideas will be given just weight to obtain the best “fit” for the current projectLeads of all levels will handle issues ethically and without favoritism

ResponsibilitiesLeader ResponsibilitiesEach team lead for each week has built upon the base setup in week one. Each leader has placed all documents in Drive, both reference and deliverables, early in the week so that all members can view and add to them. Our members follow a set of standards that allow us to get all deliverables complete well before the due dates.

All documents are made viewable on day oneAll members add their piece to each document as early as possible so that revisions can be madeA grammar/spelling check is run before any deliverable due dateContent checks are run periodically by the current leader to review for required member’s input

All Leaders will act of the highest caliber in their positionLeaders will provide any and all documentation and products required to complete a project, as neededTimelines and schedules will be posted and known to all members of a team - Leaders will ensure these timelines

are followed to the best of their abilitiesLeaders will make constant and consistent checks on all work to ensure both quality and quantity requirements are

being metLeaders will provide quality, early feedback on all work so that revisions can be made before a deliverable is

beyond changesLeaders will host team and individual meetings to provide this feedback to each member of the team

Responsibilities Cont.Kotter’s Steps

1. Establish a sense of urgency

2. Form a powerful guiding coalition

3. Create a vision

4. Communicate the vision

5. Empower others to act on the vision

6. Plan for and create short-term wins

7. Consolidate improvements and sustain the momentum for change

8. Institutionalize the new approaches

Responsibilities Cont.Kotter’s StepsWhile our team did not necessarily use any of Kotter’s steps in an attempt to make changes in Leadership in the group, we believe these steps were used from the start to jumpstart the team’s efforts:

Establish a sense of urgency - Wayne pushed this Kotter’s step from day one. From initial email communications to setting Drive up on day one, he pushed the team to get started on everything as soon as possible to be successful.

Create a vision - The team, as a whole, created a singular vision of how we wanted our studio to be run, its organizational structure, and our leadership styles from day one.

Empower others to act on the vision - The weeks were short, but rotating our members as leaders every week allowed all of us to share, improve, and act on the vision that we created in week one.

Plan for and create short-term wins - This Kotter’s step was likely the most used step because of the short timeframe that we had to work with in class.

Week Four EffectsAs a whole:The leaders for each week did a good job in getting all deliverables and references pushed out to all team members. Each leader was integral to their week, and there were none that simply let the team do all of the work. Whether this pro-active nature was based in habit in each leader or was learned from the week one pacing remains to be seen. In either case, all of our leaders seemed as if they were pushing themselves to be “better” in all aspects, especially where it concerned the Hangouts sessions. The team’s overall leadership goals were improved, and each individual’s goals were realized as a result. We believe that, for the most part, each of our team members has grown in some way as a leader. The short time span of our leadership cycles reduced the effectiveness of our leadership goals, but at the same time it helped push goals faster and increased each member’s efficiency.

Top-level Org. Chart

PresidentDax Gazaway

Art LeadChristian White

Animation LeadRyon Winter

ProducerWayne Work

Lead ProgrammerDylan Sprenkle

Technology Director

Fred Jones

Design DirectorRyan Applegate

IT ManagerTommy Tones

Top Tier Organizational Structure Task/Deliverable Report

Schedule/Timeline Report

Level DesignHenry Hurts

Production DepartmentProducer

Wayne Work

Associate ProducerRyan Applegate

Associate ProducerDylan Sprenkle

QA ManagerChristian White

Asset MaintenanceRyon Winter

Audio ManagerTed Guitar

Audio Engineers

Design DirectorRyan Applegate

World/Level Designer

Wayne Work

Associate Level Designer

Christian White

Senior WriterDylan Sprenkle

Lead TesterRyon Winter

Art LeadFrankie Figs

Animation LeadSunny Bones

Test Team Co-writer

Design Department

Programming Department

Game Coding Team

UI/UX Team

IT Technicians

Lead Programmer Dylan Sprenkle

Game Coding LeadWayne Work

Graphics LeadChristian White

UI/UX Programmer Ryan Applegate

Networking Lead/IT Ryon Winter

Art DepartmentArt Lead

Christian White

Animation LeadRyon Winter

AnimatorShifty Mover

Object/Item ArtistDylan Sprenkle

Creature ArtistWayne Work

Terrain ArtistRyan Applegate

Full Organizational ChartPresident

Art Lead

Animation Lead

Producer

Lead Programmer

Technology DirectorDesign

Director

Associate Producer

Associate Producer

QA Manager

Asset Maintenance

Audio Manager

Task/Deliverable Report

Schedule/Timeline Report

Level Design

Audio Engineers

Associate Level Design

Senior Writer

Lead Tester

Test Team

Co-writer

UI/UX Team

IT Technicians

Game Code Lead

Graphics Lead

UI/UX Programmer

Networking Lead/IT

IT Manager

Game Coding Team

Terrain Artist

Object/Item Artist

Creature Artist

Animator

ReferencesKotter (n.d.). 8 Steps to Accelerate Change in 2015. Retrieved from http://www.kotterinternational.com/ebook/Kotter-8-steps-ebook.pdf

Spaulding II, S. (2009). Team Leadership in the Game Industry. Boston: Course Technology PTR.