Casual Connect Leadership

Development Forum
Tina Merry
Development Director, tmerry@ea.com

EA Canada
SUMMARY
The Leadership Development Forum, held the day
before Casual Connect Seattle in July 2009, was a
special one-day event organized by Women in Games
International, Women in Games Vancouver and the
IGDA Women in Games and was focused on personal
development.
I attended this forum as a speaker representing
Electronics Arts in the roundtable: Career
Development in the Gaming Industry. In doing
so, I was fortunate to hear some great thoughts
shared around this topic, both from the employer and
the employee perspective. This document is intended
to share some of what I learned.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Unique Factors and Career Development in the Game
Industry 1
Best Practices and Tips for Career Growth 2
Getting into the Industry now what? 2
Work, Life, Balance in the Gaming Industry 2
New to Management Now what? 3
Authors note 3
EA Confidential May 21, 2014
1
INTRODUCTION
Career development in the context of this discussion might encompass different viewpoints for
example:
Employee: how individuals manage their careers within and across different organizations - What are my
opportunities to grow my career? How do I do it? Do I need to change companies?
Employer: how organizations structure career progress of their staff (might also be tied to succession
planning) What am I doing to develop and support my staff in order to retain, motivate and grow talent
within the organization?
UNIQUE FACTORS AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN THE GAME
INDUSTRY
What is unique about career development in the game industry, and how might this uniqueness impact
the employee or employer?

Unique Factor Employee Employer
1. Younger demographics +
faster career progression
Opportunities are more likely to exist
which allow staff to go from entry
level to lead or management within a
relatively short period of time; ~ 5
years or less is not uncommon to
reach lead level.
Senior roles can be held by people
with more limited work experience;
this can translate to a lack of overall
business maturity within the
leadership team.
2. Maturing demographic As we start seeing a shift to an older
demographic, staff priorities are
moving towards a desire for a more
defined career path, along with
work/life balance
Employers must provide more
structure than was seen in the earlier
days of game development (i.e. EAs
JFM tool set and processes around
quarterly promotion assessment is
relatively mature for this industry)
3. Significance of affinity for
the subject matter (i.e.
passion)
Passion for games and relevant life
experience(s) within the game genre
can provide new opportunities for
existing staff, and also open the door
for entry level staff to get into the
gaming industry.
This more of a challenge for
recruitment than retention how do
we best balance the need for a
certain technical skill set with the
understandable benefits of hiring
someone passionate about the
subject matter?
4. Rapidly evolving industry Tech staff have more opportunities
to try something new to generate
growth and challenge without
changing companies or even
changing jobs within the company.
Manager is able to leverage these
changes to provide exciting new
opportunities for staff
New consoles, new technology,
new domain areas to explore,
new game genres etc.
5. Large number of different
sub-disciplines within each
job family

Job Family = Art, Engineering,
Audio etc.
Ability to move across disciplines
artists to SEs, SEs to designers
or management etc
Ability to change domain focus
within a discipline
Gameplay SE moves to
rendering
Environment artist joins the
Line manager may not have the
same core skills as his/her staff,
requiring more support from craft
leads.

Managers have a greater breadth of
options to draw upon to retain key
talent.
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lighting team
6. Craft specialists vs. leads Career growth remains possible for
the individual that does not want to
be a manager or leader
Need to create separate career paths
within job families craft senior
specialists versus craft team leaders
i.e. guru positions

BEST PRACTICES AND TIPS FOR CAREER GROWTH
What are some of the best practices or tips that can help me grow my career in this industry?
Understand the importance of networking and who you know - establishing and maintaining strong
relationships within the organization and industry is a key success factor.
Find a mentor or coach to support you (either within or external to your organization)
Volunteer for additional responsibilities, steering committees etc.
Find out what great looks like i.e. what will take to exceed management expectations for your role or
more specifically for a given task?
Play the game! Regardless of your role, you should be playing the game and providing your feedback on a
regular basis.
Track your achievements along with any written feedback received in a special file and then discuss them
with your manager.
Write a white paper, build a template or otherwise find a way to create an impact outside of your current
sphere of influence
Work on your communication and collaboration skills these are key to success in this industry
Think quality, not quantity in everything you do
Have confidence in yourself and what you do.
GETTING INTO THE INDUSTRY NOW WHAT?
How do I break into this industry, or find a new role within the industry once Im there?
Demonstrate passion for gaming. Relevant experiences or affinity for a particular product or genre can also
make a huge difference.
Leverage the multitude of online resources available to help you build your portfolio, create a compelling
resume/CV and prepare for the interview once you get your foot into the door
Look for parallels between the non-gaming professional experiences you have and how this might apply to
gaming; sell on these commonalities.
Seek out internship or contract positions as a method to gain industry experience.
Once in the industry:
o Be clear what you desire and communicate your interests outward and upwards you never know
when an opportunity may open up, so you need to promote yourself accordingly.
o Look for stretch roles or goals that support your interests and demonstrate your readiness to move
into a new role.
WORK, LIFE, BALANCE IN THE GAMING INDUSTRY
How can I balance the challenges of working in this industry with the needs of my family? Are families
discounted?
Understand what matters most in your job so you can focus on delivering excellence in the right areas.
EA Confidential May 21, 2014
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Understand what balance means to you and recognize that you may have to give up things in some areas
of your career or personal life to gain time/balance in others.
Be prepared to let things go by asking yourself If I didnt do this today, what would be the impact to me?
To the project? To my team?
Find a company (like EA) that respects the need for balanced lives and actively supports you in this regard.
For example at EA we have flexible hours available for family appointments etc.
Work with your family to ensure that you are appropriately sharing parenting responsibilities and delegating
chores to other family members where possible
It is important to find some time for yourself each day/week allowing time for hobbies and personal
interests will make you a better employee, parent and partner.
NEW TO MANAGEMENT NOW WHAT?
As someone new to management, what are some of the things I should consider?
Consider holding a brainstorm session with your new team to discuss the culture that your team wants by
asking these questions:
o What is the purpose of our team?
o Given this purpose, what are the near term priorities? (next 6-12 months)
o What do we expect/want from our leaders in this team?
o What is our vision for our team?
Make it clear to your team when you are consulting them for input versus when you are working on the
basis of a consensus decision. Never leave this ambiguous.
Foster a culture where everyone feels their voice can be heard.
View yourself as a facilitator for your team how can you help them be successful? What roadblocks can
you remove?
Learn about what it means to use a situational leadership style you cannot expect to successfully apply a
singe management style to a diverse project team.
Find a mentor or coach to support you (either within or external to your organization)
Differences between gaming and other industries, from an EA employee perspective
My managers take career management seriously. I worked 5 years as a PM for a big oil and gas
company and another 5 years for a small consulting firm and only ever had 1 performance review and never
had a 1:1 meeting with my manager. I had to proactively seek out feedback and find myself a mentor to
grow. Things that we take for granted at EA such as 1:1s, regular feedback, As&Os, performance reviews,
development plans, job family matrix, formal mentors, etc seem to be foreign to a lot of other industries
(another example, my wife works in health care and she started implementing 1:1s based on my experience
and her staff love it, she is also in awe of the JFMs we have).
I have more control over my career. EA provides the tools, processes, and people to help my career
grow but then its up to me to actually use them. This gives me total control over how fast, or slow, I want
my career to grow.
AUTHORS NOTE
There were 6 different roundtables held at this event, and the link below will take you to a U-Stream video
(was a live podcast) showing a summary presentation for each roundtable topic. In this, I discuss some of
the points covered above; my portion starts at around minute 20 of this video, and lasts 3-4 minutes
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/1844553