Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
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Key questions of a producer
The producer must keep three questions clear in his or her mind to fulfill his/her du-
ties:
• What are we building? It is important to have an exact answer to this question
throughout the development process. The team should have access to up to
date documentation at all times.
• Who is building it? The quality of the product is directly related to the skills
and talents of the team building it. Be honest and objective when evaluating
the team's skill sets. Although, traditionally the producer does not hire and
fire team members, it is the producer's responsibility to keep upper manage-
ment informed of any personnel change recommendations.
• How will we build it? Software development, including games, has proven
procedures: we suggest you do some research on the most popular tech-
niques and talk to your team. They may have used one or two in the past and
may have suggestions.
As we will see in the next section, the producer needs several distinctive skills to ac-
complish those duties!
Skills for all!
The skills required by the producer to accomplish his/her duties are as follows:
Cat Herding : The producer's key skill is that of cat herder or human relations
management. A development team is made up of a wide variety of personal-
ities that think about solutions to problems in a very different way: a program-
mer may have a different approach to an artist. The producer's primary goal
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