Team Leader – on motivation and effort.

[The memos below were circulated internally to designers and programmers at a video-game company in the San Francisco Bay Area in August and September, 2000. Certain identifying details have been removed. They are reprinted here without permission.]

Memo #1

From: Team Leader
Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 5:54 PM
To: The Team
Subject: Hours and Days

Hello everyone,

A. is going to talk to the team about more commitment toward meeting our early October Final Date. You as designers and engineers have the heaviest burden on your shoulders, with an awful lot of material to finish for this project. I don’t know when he is going to address the team, and I have talked to most of you already about added commitment. I would like us to lead this effort by example.

When we did the final seven weeks of [design on our last game], the team worked almost 500 hours per person. That was a phenomenal feat. We are now in a more critical position than we were in the final seven weeks of our last project.

I ask that you be able to commit yourself more fully to the time that it is going to take to get this done. Ideally, we would all be motivated to work hard to get not only our scheduled items done, but also to get the polish and fun into the game that it needs. Some of you are more efficient workers and would need to help one another when we are falling behind, and to lend your specific expertise to assist in making sure every part of the game has the same level of quality.

As a minimum, I am asking that you put in a six-day work week and a ten-hour day each of those six days for the next six weeks. If you feel you are ahead of schedule or moving at a good clip to get tasks done, there are lots of tasks that we can farm out from either of the collective pools (engineering and design). Every extra effort would be appreciated by the team and company.

Memo #2

From: Team Leader
Sent: Sunday, August 20, 2000 2:06 PM
To: Team
Subject: RE: Hours and Days

Hi.

I am not in the business of making the team work slave hours, and I never get down on someone unless they are being less than productive to the team. The purpose of my previous email was to state the urgency of this project’s status in relation to when we are going to have to ship it. I feel that there are other, less productive ways to approach motivating people, and have found over the course of managing that there are two ways [that are] best to convey that urgency and motivation.

The first way is to be honest about our situation to those that report to me. I hate managing by politics, and in fact almost never include other managers at my level or above in these types of emails because it conveys the attitude that I am only sending these mails to satisfy them. The real reason is in fact to let you know exactly where we stand in the project and what my expectations are of you as a group or individual. As a manager I have to balance two things. I have to do what I can to make you guys productive and do what I can to make you happy. I do my best with Costco runs, letting your direct manager be the key contact point between you and me, and just trying to be good/light-natured in the office.

As for productivity, I believe it is a two-way street. Obviously each employee is as productive as he/she wants to/can be. It is my job, though, for the sake of the company and the employee/team, to help them remain informed of the company’s needs and expectations. As a manager many of my expectations have to mirror the company’s. There are other managers who like to hoard information like a power broker, and there are those who are outright dictators. I would like to believe that I am both fair and honest.

The other way to gain productivity and motivation is to lead by example. I stated in the last email that the team members worked an average of 500 hours for the 7 weeks. Although I am not as critical-path as the rest of you guys, I in fact had put in 650 hours for the 7 weeks. I had stayed here at work 3 to 4 nights a week. Not once did I ever ask another employee to match the amount of time I spent here, nor did I ever ask an employee to spend the night or compromise their personal lives in that manner. Again I can only ask that you guys put more hours in, I can’t force you.

[After my] last email I was flamed by about a half-dozen replies. It may have been worded wrong, but we had missed our milestone by a week at the time and ended up being more than a month late on the final date for that milestone (first playable). There is a lot of added pressures to this particular project such as marketing is WAY behind our product, and we are coming up on our scheduled finish without having reached two of the project’s biggest milestones (Alpha and Beta).

I am by no means a perfect manager. I have only stated the above to open this dialogue so you can understand me a little better. I would appreciate any further feedback as I know there is a serious lack of communication to you guys, and anything I can do to assuage your doubts about me or the company, I wish to commit to.

Memo #3

From: A.
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 10:44 PM
To: Team
Subject: Labor Day PTO [Paid Time Off]

Monday September 4th is Labor Day, a company holiday. Since this date is two days before our Alpha date, I expect that many of us will be here working. The company will credit 8 hours of PTO for employees who work on holidays, but it must be pre-submitted. If you are expecting to be in, just let me know and I will take care of the paperwork.

Memo #4

From: Team Leader
Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 1:54 PM
To: Team
Subject: Thank YOU!

Marketing came by to thank all of you guys for the hard work and effort you put into the demo. You did in fact kick ass.

They left some milk and cookies at the Costco lunch stop, outside of my cube. Come get some before the milk curdles