Meetings can mean many things to many people. Some see it as a way to force every team member to communicate with each other, some see it as a way to waste time and monkey-ing around in the conference room while some see it as an essential tool to achive the results.

So far, I find meeting to be a very important communication medium if it’s done right, with the right intention.

D. Keith Robinson of www.to-done.com has some very applicable guidelines on how to ensure the meetings end up productive, not destructive to the projects at hand.

I would also like to share some of my thoughts on how quality meetings can help improve communications and ensuring the delivery of each projects. I have separated the meetings into Team Meetings and Department Meetings, which focuses on the differences of each of the meetings and it’s importance to the overall project.

Team Meetings

Team meetings is an efficient way to bring everyone in the project team together and to make sure that everyone stays on the ??ight?? track.

For the purpose of the discussion, team meeting is defined as meeting that is attended by members from various disciplines such as texture artists, game AI programmers, level designers and concept artists. As such, the topic discussed during team meetings are expected to be of general and is normally more of an overview briefing of progress and issues that needs to be addressed across the entire project team. Issues that concerns only a few individuals or very specific tasks that would not have major impact on the rest of the project team are best not discussed during team meetings.

However, to ensure that meetings are held only out of necessities rather than for the sake of formalities, the following questions can help in evaluating the need of the team meeting.

Kicking Off a Project?

Communication Issues?

Progress Updates?

Changes to Deadlines/Milestones/Directions?

Team meetings are especially important during the kick off period of every project, since most of the time, everyone is still unclear of what the direction is, and it?? up to each team?? leader to have everyone in synch with the direction of the project. The agendas that are normally covered in a kick off team meeting are:

Task assignments and expected delivery dates

Responsibilities of each team members

Naming conventions

Reporting mechanisms (Bugs/Changes)

Documentations and any processes that is and will be implemented across the project team.

Team meetings are also used to facilitate changes in deadlines, milestones and directions of the project. It?? important to have everyone aware of these changes as it will directly impact their schedules and how flexible they can be to accommodate the required changes. It is at these points of time that issues needs to be raised during team meetings. For instance, a drastic change in art direction will surely have an impact in the way the rendering engine works.

During the development process, there are bound to be many changes in the art direction, AI algorithms, game designs etc. These changes will definitely impact the entire team in one way or another, and hence it?? best to hold team meetings to meet the changing requirements. Without having everyone aware of the direction changes, the implementations of the changes will face various obstacles such as objections and confusions within the team.

For the purpose of progress updates, it will be a good idea to fix a time on a particular time of a week, say every Wednesday, 10 am. The reason for a fixed time and day is so that everyone can schedule themselves and ensure that they prioritize the important issues that need to be updated to everyone across the project team. Wednesdays are also good for team meetings since Mondays are normally ??etting into the rhythm?? days while Fridays are ??eekend moods??.

Also, progress updates meetings should be kept as short as possible. The idea is to ensure everyone is aware of what?? going on and it?? important that any suggestions and discussions are kept until the end of the meeting, since most of the time, not everyone would be involved in it anyway.

It?? also important to stretch that everyone in the project team should participate actively in team meetings without exceptions. The worst thing that can happen in a project team is communication breakdown, and the impact can be much more costly than the time spent on team meetings.

Department Meetings

Department meetings are meetings which are held amongst each specific department to resolve each department?? issues and to ensure synergy within each member in the department. For instance, department meetings usually consist of the art director, texture artists, concept artists, 3D modelers, terrain modelers and animators. The purpose of department meetings is also to ensure the practice of knowledge sharing and to help out each other with issues and keeping the team spirit alive.

Department meetings can help to reduce the need to have the entire project team attending the meeting when the issues only concern the respective department.

The function of department meetings can be broken down to the following few:-

1) Discuss internal development issues

2) To encourage knowledge sharing and skills transfer

3) Progress Update and Milestone Review

4) Evaluate roles and responsibilities of every member in the team

Department meetings are normally held informally, such as during small discussions over the table, or over the water machine, but it?? important to note that such discussions are crucial in building a sticky team, and it?? advisable to ensure that the workspace environment encourages such activities.

Due to the spontaneity nature of discussions within team members in the same department, it?? easy to miss important messages which are sometimes pointed during informal conversations. Thus, it?? in the best interest of team leader to ensure that ideas and issues can be easily voiced out, such as the use Wiki which can help to track and document important details.

A substantial amount of time is normally spent in communicating with other team member in the same department either through verbally, emails or even instant messaging. Though such practices is important to encourage communication flow, it?? also advisable to fix a specific time which the entire department sits down together to review the latest development in a team. Virtual team however, will not have such luxury and the only way to workaround is probably through video or instant messaging conferences.

Each department usually serves a major yet specific role in the entire game development process. Hence, it?? important to keep everyone in the same department inline with the objectives.

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