Freedom to fail – or managing to succeed?(international.brandeins.de)
international.brandeins.de
Freedom to fail – or managing to succeed?
https://international.brandeins.de/ingman-freedom-to-fail-or-managing-to-succeed
24 comments
Wow. I'm glad that somebody did that experiment. I'm disappointed, but not surprised.
From the article:
> “They did admit that of course things hadn’t gone too well. But afterwards they spent half the day playing Counter-Strike again. There was no learning curve at all.”
> He ought to have become sceptical sooner, when he noticed they had formed a close-knit community, from which he was largely excluded.
He basically hired a bunch of 20-somethings and literally hoped that it would work out - doesn't sound like a plan to me even for an idealistic person. Sorry, but he seems highly incompetent as a manager. Maybe it would work for people who come from bureaucratic environments and who are grateful for this opportunity.
I wonder how he managed to finance that for so long.
I would like to repeat the same experiment with people who are self-motivated because they've been in the workforce and burned out. I guess this might work.
From the article:
> “They did admit that of course things hadn’t gone too well. But afterwards they spent half the day playing Counter-Strike again. There was no learning curve at all.”
> He ought to have become sceptical sooner, when he noticed they had formed a close-knit community, from which he was largely excluded.
He basically hired a bunch of 20-somethings and literally hoped that it would work out - doesn't sound like a plan to me even for an idealistic person. Sorry, but he seems highly incompetent as a manager. Maybe it would work for people who come from bureaucratic environments and who are grateful for this opportunity.
I wonder how he managed to finance that for so long.
I would like to repeat the same experiment with people who are self-motivated because they've been in the workforce and burned out. I guess this might work.
Same at a shop where I worked, an endless stream of 20-30 hires. Each of them was seen as the new rock star by the manager, then nothing emerged for 6 months, then the next batch came.
Manager didn't allow senior devs to have any authority, because who can contradict a 25 year old in the middle of the cultural revolution?
Manager didn't allow senior devs to have any authority, because who can contradict a 25 year old in the middle of the cultural revolution?
Allowing people to experiment: good
Allowing people to do so completely disconnected from customers or funder: bad
Picking a team entirely of inexperienced people: also bad
Allowing people to do so completely disconnected from customers or funder: bad
Picking a team entirely of inexperienced people: also bad
Daikatana, Duke Nukem Forever, Broken Age, Star Citizen...
Even experienced industry professionals need some guidance and supervision.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Even experienced industry professionals need some guidance and supervision.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Why Broken Age is in that group?
I think it had a much lower expectation to start with, but also the delay to launch wasnt absurd and the end product is quite good in my opinion. Also, it was a comercial success for its niche.
I think it had a much lower expectation to start with, but also the delay to launch wasnt absurd and the end product is quite good in my opinion. Also, it was a comercial success for its niche.
The game was largely overfunded, and yet they had to rely on splitting the game in two acts and rely on the sales from the first to fund additional development.
I agree that among the titles I mentioned is the less disastrous, but is still an example of developers being given a large amount of money and almost free reigns, and delivering something late and below expectations (I played the game as well, it was decent but really not that remarkable).
I agree that among the titles I mentioned is the less disastrous, but is still an example of developers being given a large amount of money and almost free reigns, and delivering something late and below expectations (I played the game as well, it was decent but really not that remarkable).
It was overfunded on Kickstarter, but then they - very transparently - expanded the scope of the game.
They delivered a documentary series, with a high production quality, while they were developing the game that was incredible to follow.
The communication through the forum during the development was excellent, transparent and informative.
I was very hyped about the game and it was not below my expectations. I enjoyed every minute of playing. It is not the best point-and-click adventure of all times if that was your expectation.
I believe it is nonsense to put in this list as well as comparing to the situation of the OP
They delivered a documentary series, with a high production quality, while they were developing the game that was incredible to follow.
The communication through the forum during the development was excellent, transparent and informative.
I was very hyped about the game and it was not below my expectations. I enjoyed every minute of playing. It is not the best point-and-click adventure of all times if that was your expectation.
I believe it is nonsense to put in this list as well as comparing to the situation of the OP
Broken Age from start to finish took less than three years to make and went over-budget but still managed to complete the game by creating the two parts into chapters to get early sales outside the original kickstarters.
People who have never managed or been part of managing big projects with deadlines don't understand that. They see the above as a failure rather than obstacles that they succeeded in getting over and releasing a moderate to good game.
People who have never managed or been part of managing big projects with deadlines don't understand that. They see the above as a failure rather than obstacles that they succeeded in getting over and releasing a moderate to good game.
That's a bad example list.
Daikatana was done by an industry veteran who revolutionized gaming and was an attempt to try something new.
Duke Nukem Forever is the butt of all jokes, but the end result you are talking about is a thrown together piece of shit that had nothing to do with the original and nothing with the article.
Broken Age was also done by veterans and even thought it wasn't what was expected it was a decent game.
Star Citizen I fon't know much about and since it isn't released yet I wont comment on it
Anyway the article is about giving students who didn't do anything but had an "award winning" idea free reign about money and clear goal without monitoring them. They then played counter strike in 600$ gaming chairs.
There is a documentary of the making off of broken age and they didn't just fuck around with the money, so most of your examples probably don't fit at all
Daikatana was done by an industry veteran who revolutionized gaming and was an attempt to try something new.
Duke Nukem Forever is the butt of all jokes, but the end result you are talking about is a thrown together piece of shit that had nothing to do with the original and nothing with the article.
Broken Age was also done by veterans and even thought it wasn't what was expected it was a decent game.
Star Citizen I fon't know much about and since it isn't released yet I wont comment on it
Anyway the article is about giving students who didn't do anything but had an "award winning" idea free reign about money and clear goal without monitoring them. They then played counter strike in 600$ gaming chairs.
There is a documentary of the making off of broken age and they didn't just fuck around with the money, so most of your examples probably don't fit at all
I don't understand why he phoned the client to say they were late instead of letting the appointed chief executive do it.
If you promise something to a client, it's you who delivers or doesn't deliver.
A significant amount of freedom is necessary to maximize people's potential in terms of both productivity and happiness. People also need clear expectations and accountability for their work. These are not mutually exclusive, but much easier said than done. I always lean toward more freedom than control and always will.
Sometimes you need to let people have enough rope to hang themselves. Sometimes you need to take risks that may come back to harm you for the betterment of your culture & team.
Micromanagement should be a last resort and is indicative of other issues that should be addressed.
I like what the Netflix culture slides say about Freedom & Responsibility [1].
[1] https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
Sometimes you need to let people have enough rope to hang themselves. Sometimes you need to take risks that may come back to harm you for the betterment of your culture & team.
Micromanagement should be a last resort and is indicative of other issues that should be addressed.
I like what the Netflix culture slides say about Freedom & Responsibility [1].
[1] https://jobs.netflix.com/culture
Those founders would have learn a lot for next businesses in the future. The problem is that they did it with someone else's money.
It is a good idea letting people to fail early with the minimal amount of money possible.
That was exactly the idea of YCombinator. Experimenting before scaling could be cheap.
It is a good idea letting people to fail early with the minimal amount of money possible.
That was exactly the idea of YCombinator. Experimenting before scaling could be cheap.
Isn't the early MIT AI Lab a counterexample: that you can have smart people with basically free reign make big strides (such as HAKMEM)?
My understanding is they had very minimal supervision but effectively endless money from government funding.
My understanding is they had very minimal supervision but effectively endless money from government funding.
Aren't PARC and SkunkWorks another counterexamples? Hell, wasn't most progress in science and technology in the post-WWII era stemming from free rein and unlimited budgets of the Cold War period?
Sounds like survivorship bias. What about MKULTRA? That's free rein and afaik an unlimited budget.
Well, there's "free reign", and there's Best-of-its-kind-in-the-world-University, DARPA-funded free reign.
There's Ayn Randism, and there's 20% time. These have wildly different utility to society.
Didn't get much out of that article. A bunch of kids were messing around in largely undocumented ways and burned through a pile of someone else's money.
Isn’t that inscribed on road signs as you enter San Francisco?
snafu in any other startup around the world, right?
omg the naivety of those founders..
Maybe they weren't naive, but just curious?
There could've been a (obviously really really) small chance that this project went perfectly fine and they'd build one of the greatest games ever. But if it went like that the resulting article would be even worse. You just can't know if something like this is ever going to produce something.
To explain in more depth:
People need both accountability and autonomy. But different people need these in different amounts, and not everyone has the maturity to know how much of each they require. A large part of forminga strong working relationship is learning together how much of each is needed, and building the trust that allows for greater autonomy.
You want to start any relationship with the expectation of trust, but ultimately trust must be earned. However, if you're constantly verifying whether you can trust the team then you don't really trust them. Allowing them to set the plan gives them autonomy, and also gives them an initial chance to show that they are worthy of trust by creating and communicating a realistic plan. By giving them the responsibility for defining what their milestones are it changes the dynamic. Instead of you the leader inspecting them to see if you can still trust them to do a good job, it becomes an opportunity for them to show off what a good job they are doing. Small change in ownership, big change in relationship.
Unfortunately some people will show you that they are not able to keep themselves on task with too much autonomy. Even then you have an opportunity to create trust. You can invest time in helping them identify why they are underperforming, and try to help them succeed. Act as a mentor, not just an overseer and you will gain their trust in your leadership. Even then, some people will still not step up, but most will.
Ultimately real trust must be earned. It can be given optimistically, loaned so to speak, but must be eventually earned. Always assume the best, and try to ascribe good motives to your people, but don't set them up for failure by allowing them to be disconnected from reality. Set them up for success by giving them accountability and opportunities to demonstrate the great job they are doing.