Tim Schafer: you need to hire those who are smarter than you

The author of the Monkey Island series of games, the Grim Fandango quest and the Psychonauts platformer, Tim Schafer, shared tips on managing the game development team.

Shafer gave advice during the Ask Me Anything question-and-answer session held by the Reddit resource.

To begin with, he spoke about the general principles of working as a manager: “In management, whether it’s good or not, I am guided by the following principle – I hire people who are smarter than me.” From time to time, subordinates will perform tasks differently than the supervisor. But before you get involved with your opinion, you need to ask yourself, is it really necessary to interfere? Because even if they are wrong, it is most likely a trifle and not worth attention,” Shafer said.

Schafer called the search for a balance between freedom of creativity and the need to make money an important part of the work of the head. “If you let the team members make creative decisions themselves, then in the future they will be able to come up with even cooler jokes. Therefore, if you give the team creative freedom, you will end up with a more pumped team that will start producing better games, which, hopefully, will eventually bring in more money,” he shared.

The main principle of Shafer is to serve as an example to his employees: “I just try to give my best in order to have the right to remain part of the cool team that I have assembled.”

A source: http://www.develop-online.net