The main Tiny Mantis team is comprised of three people: Nikita Mikros, Tommy Leung and myself (Jess Fiorini). We regularly employ freelancers but Tiny Mantis remains a fairly small, and intimate group. I prefer this set-up to the acres of workers at megaliths like EA or Blizzard. Perhaps the main pay-off of keeping things small is that my role is multi-faceted and I get exposure to all aspects of game development. Of course, I’m not working on the next Starcraft but I do get to create universes in my own right a la Propaganda Lander.
A producer’s duties are somewhat difficult to define, especially in a team of 3. Yes, there’s maintaining the bug tracker and keeping to a project time line but there’s quite a bit more on the personal and creative level going on. One thing that is important to upholding sanity in a project is trusting your co-worker’s abilities. Trusting in the abilities of your technical and artistic team lends to a certain amount of experimentation. This is especially true if you’re not the most technically advanced in a technology-based industry. Game development is a minefield of problems and incompatibility. What may be true about a game platform today is not necessarily true tomorrow. If I can trust my team’s response to challenges, I can give a thumbs up to a project that might contain unfamiliar aspects.
Of course, it it much easier to trust in the core Tiny Mantis team than it is a freelancer. Freelancer’s litter the sidewalk of NYC. One would assume that with such a large talent pool that we could have new artists and programmers for every project. This is not only untrue but it is also highly undesirable. When we find a freelancer that we like, we treat them well and hire them often. Also, just because the talent pool is large does not mean that every candidate is a good fit for a project or even office mechanics. I think it is wise to build up a stable of reliable talent that you can draw from dependent on the project. Projects usually do not come equipped with a learning curve so knowing who to call will definitely alleviate headaches in the future. Furthermore, freelancers should check in periodically with businesses that they have a good relationship with. Letting companies in on your schedule and reminding them of your existence usually pays off.
Even with the best freelancer in town, my job as producer is to facilitate development. I usually try to ensure that the end client does not have direct access to the feelancer and vice versa. This way, I can filter discussions to provide just the needed facts. Sometimes, the client and the freelancer must interact and in that case my job becomes more of a moderator. This allows the freelancer to focus on development and gives me another angle to track the project.
Tracking the project is another issue when the work is spread among people who may or may not be on site and who may or may not be accustomed to using a bug tracker. I usually spend a certain amount of time at the beginning of a project explaining the functions of our bug tracker to new freelancers. Bug trackers usually have help documentation but if yours does not provide documentation, it is helpful to have usage instructions that can be accessed off/on site. Also, just because the bug tracker has been explained does not mean that it is being used. If your bug tracker does not provide instant notification when a bug/change has been posted, it is the producer’s responsibility to verbalize that a new issues has been posted. And do not feel awkward saying “check the bug tracker” multiple times, sometimes this job is like herding cats!
Freelancers provide new opinions and experiences to project development. We frequently include freelancers in design meetings and are better for it. Freelancers wind up getting interesting perspectives and skills from the diversity of the projects they work on. Those who are forward thinking with their problem solving display hidden skills that I might not have known about, which could lead to further work down the line. Familiarity with a freelancer’s skill set circles back to trusting your team. The more comfortable I am with a freelancer’s abilities, the more I am going to champion their employment.
